JOURNAL 



OF THE 



ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 



OF PHILADELPHIA. 



Art. I. — On the Fossil genus Basilosaurus, Harlan, (Zeuglodon, Omen,) with a 

 notice of Specimens from the Eocene Green Sand of South Carolina. By Robert 

 W. GiBBES, M. D., of Columbia, South Carolina, Correspondent of the Academy of 

 Natural Sciences of Philadelphia ; of the New York Historical Society, &c. 



Among the interesting discoveries of modern Geology, none have excited more 

 notice than the relics of immense Sauria and Cetacea. 



In 1832, Dr. Harlan described a gigantic vertebra, weighing forty-four pounds, 

 sent to him by Judge Bry from the banks of the Wachita river, which he referred 

 to a new genus of the class Enaliosauri, of Coneybeare, and proposed for it, from its 

 analogies and gigantic size, the name of Basilosaurus.* He subsequently procured 

 from the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Clark county, Alabama, remains of similar 

 vertebrae, and portions of other bones evidently belonging to the same fossil, which 

 he afterwards described more at length, and figured, in his " Medical and Physical 

 Researches." 



In 1835, Professor Agassiz visi'ed England, and observed in the collection of the 

 University of Cambridge, a singular tooth, of which Scilla had given a figure. He 

 regarded it as a Mammalian, and published his views of it soon after in Valentin's 

 " Repertorium fur Anatomic und Physiologic." Viewing it as nearly allied to the 

 seal family, he proposed for it the name of Phocodon. (PI. II., fig. 9.) 



In 1840, M. Grateloup published at Bordeaux a "Description d'un fragment de 

 machoire fossile d'un geure nouveau de reptile (Saurien) voisin de I'lguanodon." 



♦Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. IV., N. S. 

 VOL. I. 2 



