74 REPORT — 1841. 



of subsequent naturalists and anatomists. Camper, for example, pronounced 

 it to be a whale, perhaps meaning a dolphin, foi-, as Cuvier remarks, the pre- 

 sence of teeth in both jaws at once proves the fossil not to belong to the 

 Balsenas, which have no teeth, nor to the Physeters, which have (conspicuous) 

 teeth only in the lower jaw. Faujas adopted Camper's opinion, referring the 

 fossil to the genus Physeter, and adding some reasons which are contradicted 

 by the descriptions given by both Chapman and WooUer. Cuvier, in the first 

 edition of his ' Ossemens Fossiles,' after refuting the opinion of Faujas, says, 

 " La verite, ainsi que nous le verrons, est que c'etoit reellement un crocodile." 

 The subsequent analysis, to which Cuvier here refers, led him in 1812 to 

 the conclusion that it belonged to the genus of Crocodiles, and was most pro- 

 bably identical in species with the Crocodile of Honfleur. 



In 1836, however, when so many new and singular genera, allied to the 

 Crocodilian family, had been added to the catalogues of Paleontology, 

 chiefly by the labours and discoveries of English anatomists and geologists, 

 Cuvier expresses his opinion on the fossil described by Wooller and Chapman 

 with more caution. He says, " II reste maintenant a savoir si c'est un croco- 

 dile, ou I'un de ces nouveaux genres decouverts dans les memos bancs. Les 

 OS des extremites y sont trop incomplets, et la tete n'y est pas represente 

 avec assez de details pour decider la question ; mais les vertebres me parais- 

 sent plus longues, relativement a leur diametre, que dans les nouveaux genres, 

 et plus semblables par ce caractere a celles des Crocodiles. Ceux qui retrou- 

 veront I'original, s'il existe encore, pourront seuls nous apprendre si les autres 

 caracteres repondent a celui-la." 



I have made inquiry at the British Museum, to Avhich the collections 

 formerly belonging to the Royal Society were transferred, but no specimen 

 corresponding with the account and figures given by the Whitby naturalists 

 exists in that collection. 



A second specimen of a long and slender-nosed Crocodilian, was obtained 

 from the lias near Whitby, between Staiths and Runswick, in the year 1791*; 

 and a more perfect skeleton was discovered in the alum shale of the lias for- 

 mation at Saltwick, near Whitby, in 1824. Both these specimens so closely 

 resemble the older fossil in all the points in which a comparison can be esta- 

 blished, as to dissipate the remaining doubts as to the nature and affinities of 

 the specimen from the same locality, described in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions for 1758. The skeleton, discovered in 1824, is figured in Young and 

 Bird's 'Geological Survey of the Yorkshire Coast', 2nd edit. 1828, pi. xvi. 

 fig. 1. p. 287, and in Dr. Buckland's ' Bridgewater Treatise,' vol. ii. pi. xxv. 

 It is now preserved in the museum at Whitby, where I have closely exa- 

 mined it. In this specimen are preserved the cranium, wanting the snout, the 

 whole vertebral column, the ribs, and the principal parts of the four extremi- 

 ties, together with the dorsal, and part of the ventral series of dermal bones. 

 The entire length of the skeleton, following the curvature of the spine, is 

 fifteen feet six inches, to which may be added two feet six inches for the lost 

 snout. The cranium posteriorly is broad, depressed, and square-shaped : it 

 begins to contract anterior to the orbits, and gradually assumes the form of 

 the narrow depressed snout ; the converging sides of the maxillae are concave 

 outwardly. The zygomatic spaces are quadrilateral, longer in the axis of 

 the skull than transversely ; the orbits are subcircular ; they look upwards 

 and slightly outwards ; their margins are not raised, and their interspace is 

 slightly concave. The parietal bone is relatively longer than in the Gavial, 

 .and sends up a longitudinal median crest, from the posterior part of which 



* See History of Whitby, vol. ii. pp. 779, 780. 



