FOSSIL MAMMALIA. 145 



The entire length of this skeleton might be about one-and- 

 twenty feet ; but a small rorqual, if adult. 



The other skeleton of the same species was discovered in 

 1810, in a neighbouring valley. It was much less preserved, 

 and in its actual state was only twelve feet five inches long. 

 Its characters were precisely similar to those of the other. 



A considerable fragment of the head of a balacna was found 

 in the centre of Paris, in 1799, by a wine-merchant of the Rue 

 Dauphine, making excavations in his cellar. The proportions 

 were different from those of the living bala^nae, and there is 

 great probability that it belonged to a species hitherto unknown 

 even among the fossils. 



Having finished this last order of the mammalia, we shall 

 say a few words on it, by way of recapitulation. 



The fossil bones of cetacea which have been collected or 

 described, are far more numerous than those to the notice of 

 which our limits have of necessity confined us. But, in fact, 

 it must be observed that, even were those limits much more 

 extended, we should only be spinning out our observations, and 

 fatiguing our readers to little purpose, by entering more 

 largely into the detail of accounts which have neither sufficient 

 authority nor sufficient precision to confer upon them interest 

 or importance. In most cases the remains themselves are not 

 in the state of preservation which can enable a naturalist to 

 appreciate their forms, and, consequently, to determine the 

 species to which they belonged. But even were it otherwise, 

 the determination of the fossil cetacea must be still attended 

 with difficulties of no common kind. Fossil remains can never 

 be properly determined but by a minute and critical acquaint- 

 ance with the osteology of living species, an acquaintance 

 which we are yet far from possessing with the animals of the 

 order in question. We find, in general, that the departments 

 of natural history which relate to the large animals of all spe- 

 cies, are precisely those in which error and confusion more 

 especially predominate. The reason is, that over such animals 



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