MEUATHERIUM. 5I 



The head of a femur seven inches in diameter, and a distal extremity eleven 

 inches wide ; the upper and lower extremities of a tibia ; an os calcis ; an astragalus; 

 an ungual phalanx, which, if perfect, would measure eleven inches in length ; and 

 fragments of several other phalanges.' 



With the remains of the Megatherium given in this list, others were found of 

 Elephas primnjenius, Eqzins Amerlcanus, Bos latifrons, and of a chelonian. 



The remains of the North American Megatlierium, which I have had the oppor- 

 tunity personally of examining, are those contained in the museums of the National 

 Institute in Washington, and of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 

 besides several fragments of teeth loaned to me by Major Leconte of the latter 

 city, and Professoi- Holmes, of Charleston. 



The collection of Megatlterium remains in the cabinet of the National Institute, 

 were discovered in Skiddaway Island, and were presented by Drs. J. P. Scriven and 

 Habersham. A few years since on a visit to Washington, through the aid of my 

 friend Professor Baird, I was enabled to borrow a few of the more characteristic spe- 

 cimens of this collection consisting of a nearly entire lower jaw with the teeth, an 

 isolated tooth, the temporal portion of a cranium, and an annular metacarpal bone. 

 The other specimens observed in the collection with a few notes taken at the time 

 are as follows : — 



1. An axis, which measures five and one-third inches in length from the summit of 

 the dentate process. The body posteriorly is three and a quarter inches in width 

 and two and a half inches in depth. The anterior orifice of the spinal canal is cordi- 

 form, and a little over two inches in diameter. The anterior articular processes 

 are pyriform in outline, and after advancing upon the dentate process become con- 

 fluent inferiorly. The entire depth of the bone from the end of the spinous pro- 

 cess is about seven inches ; and the transverse processes measure an inch and three- 

 quarters in length from the foramen for the vertebral artery, which is about seven 

 lines in diameter.- 



2. A cervical vertebra, apparently the fourth, with a half oval body, anteriorly 

 measuring two and a half inches in depth, and three and a quarter transversely. 

 The spinal canal is trilateral, one inch and a half in depth, and two and a half 

 inches transversely. The foramen of the transverse process is three-quarters of an 

 inch in diameter. 



3. Two bodies of cervical vertebrte, co-ossified by meuns of strong, irregular 

 exostoses, which completely obscure their under part. One exostosis on the right 

 side measures four and three-quarter inches in length, and is an inch in thickness. 

 The two bodies are of the length of the exostosis just mentioned; and the anterior 

 surface of the one is subcircular, and three and a quarter inches wide and three 

 deep, while the posterior surface of the other is transversely oval, and is four inches 

 in the long diameter, by three and a quarter in the short diameter. One remaining 

 tra,nsverse process has its foramen nearly an inch in diameter. 



4. The spinous process of a dorsal vertebra nine inches in length, with the 



' Loc. cit., 25. 



