104 CUE LONE. 



CHELONIA. 



Remains of Turtles are not unfrequently discovered in the Green-sand formations 

 of the United States, and many have been submitted to my inspection, especially 

 from New Jersey. So little care, however, has been taken of these fossils, at the 

 time of their discovery, that the fragments I have seen are scarcely more than suffi- 

 cient to determme the order of animals to which they belong. Indeed, it has 

 appeared to me that on the discovery of one or more of the plates which compose 

 the shell or carapace and sternum of a Turtle the finder has amused himself in 

 breaking the plates into as many bits as possible, though probably the destruction 

 has rather been owing to the accidental blow of a pick or spade in digging the 

 Marl m which the bones were imbedded. Most of the best preserved specimens I 

 have had the opportunity of examining were obtained by Prof. George H. Cook, 

 during his geological survey of New Jersey. 



€HEL.Or¥E. 



Chelone sopita. 



The remains of a supposed species of Chelone, from the Green-sand of Tinton 

 Falls, Monmouth County, New Jersey, obtained by Prof. Cook, were first mentioned 

 in a paragraph following a notice of remains of Chelone grandceva, a species of the 

 Miocene period, in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- 

 delphia, Vol. VIII, page 303'. 



These remains consist of portions of four detached marginal plates of the cara- 

 pace, which diff'er so much in breadth as to lead to the supposition that they may 

 belong to two individuals of different age, if not to two species, though I suspect 

 they really appertain to a single individual. 



The plates are smooth, except that they present distinct vascular grooves, and 

 each is crossed transversely about the middle by a furrow defining the separation 

 of the marginal scutes. Their inner border is thick and longitudinally grooved, 

 and is provided with a deep conical pit for the reception of a rib process from the 

 costal plates. From the inner border the plates gradually and uniformly thin out 

 to the acute outer edge. The upper surface is straight longitudinally, but slightly 

 concave transversely, and the under surface is in the same degree convex. The 

 transverse section forms a narrow isosceles triangle slightly curved. 



One of the plates has a length of about three inches and a half, a breadth of 

 three inches and a quarter, and a thickness at the inner border of seven lines. The 

 fragment of a second plate, more curved than the others, has a breadth of three 

 inches and a quarter, and a thickness at the inner border of 11 lines. A third 

 plate is four inches and a half long, two inches and a half wide, and three-quarters 

 of an inch thick at the inner border. The fragment of a fourth plate, less curved 

 than the others, is two inches Avide, and one inch thick at the inner border. 



