Vit4 [Oct. 20, 
Cope. ] 
Smoky Hill river, Kansas, and descriptions of new fossil sau- 
roids and Chelonians discovered and collected there. 
Pending nominations No. 679 and new nominations, Nos. 
680 and 681 were read, and the meeting was adjourned. 
Fort WALLACE, Kansas, 
October 9th, 1871. 
My Dear Prof. Lesley :— 
I write to give a brief account of the expedition of seventeen days, 
which I have just made in the valley of the Smoky Hill river in Kansas. 
Through the courtesy ef Gen. Jno. Pope, commanding the Department 
of the Missouri, I was furnished with an order on the post commandant at 
Fort Wallace for a suitable escort. This was furnished by Capt. HE. 
Butler (5th infantry), who spared no pains to make the expedition a 
success. 
We first camped at a spring eighteen miles south of Fort Wallace, and 
five miles south of Butte Creek. It had a fine flow of water, and being 
without name I called it Fossil Spring. On a bluff, on Butte Creek, 
Lient. Whitten discovered the fragments of a monster saurian projecting 
from the shale, and on following the bones into the hill, exhumed a large 
part of the skeleton of Liodon dyspelor Cope (Proceeds. A. P. 8. for 1870). 
This was welcome, as the species had been previously known from ver- 
tebre only. The pelvic arch was found perfectly preserved, and the 
scapular arch and limbs partially so. The iliac bone is slender and straight, 
slightly expanded at the acetabulum. The ischium has a somewhat 
similar form, but is curved. The axis of the proximal portion is directed 
upwards; the shaft then turns into a horizontal direction, and lies be- 
neath and at one side of the vertebral column without uniting with its 
fellow. The pubes are elongate, but wider than the other elements and 
flattened. They are in contact in front medially, and have an angulate 
axis. A short process projects from near the proximal end, on the ex- 
terior margin. The femur is a flat bone, slightly constricted medially, 
and with a decurved and projecting portion of the proximal articular, 
surface on the inner side representing a head. The extremities of the 
dentary bones are each drawn to an acute point differing thus toto coelo 
from those of the LZ. proriger. 
On the same bluff another Liodon and a Clidastes were found, with five 
species of fishes. 
On examining neighboring bluffs and denuded areas, bones supposed 
to be those of Prerodactyle, two species of Clidastes, a Dinosaur, a Croco- 
dile, and numerous fishes were brought to light. 
In a similar location on Fox Creek canon, one of the escort, Martin V. 
Hartwell, to whom I am indebted for many fine discoveries, observed the 
almost entire skeleton of a large fish, furnished with an uncommonly 
