228 FOSSIL REPTILES. 



femur was articulated. Some fragments of the ribs were also 

 found near the dorsal vertebrae. 



On the whole, the Baron's opinion is doubtful respecting 

 this relic. He seems to hesitate between referring it to the 

 new genera before mentioned, or to the crocodile, but yet 

 leans more to the latter. Of its belonging to the class of 

 reptiles tliere can he no doubt, yet M. Adrien Camper 

 hazarded the assertion that it was a balcBna, though, the balaenae 

 have no teeth, and M. Faujas St. Fond confidently pronounced 

 it physeter ; the teeth in the upper jaw, the femur, and portion 

 of pelvis completely refute the last notion. The physeters 

 have teeth only in the lower jaw, and the vestiges of pubis are 

 very faint in all the cetacea. 



The crocodiles of Franconia are better ascertained than the 

 preceding. The deposition in which they are found is very 

 similar to that in which the undoubted crocodiles of Honfleur 

 are found. It is described as a calcareous stone, or bad sort 

 of marble of a grey colour, full of ammonites and other ancient 

 shells. The quarries are near the little town of Altorf, which 

 was formerly subject to that of Nuremberg, and which has 

 passed along with it under the domination of the Kingdom 

 of Bavaria. The position, as well as nature of the strata, leads 

 geologists to consider them as belonging to the middle layers 

 of Jura. 



The first head of this genus was discovered by a burgo- 

 master of Altorf, and described by M. Walch in 1776, in the 

 Natiirforscher, a German periodical. He considered it to be- 

 long to the gavial. With the exception of the muzzle, the rest 

 of the head adhered in such a manner to the stone, that it was 

 impossible to design it distinctly. Some other discoveries of 

 the same kind were subsequently made in the same place, 

 which, though some controversy and confusion prevailed con- 

 cerning them, are undoubtedly referable to the genus crocodilus. 

 According to Schroeder, at Erkrode, half a league from 

 Brunswick, was discovered, in 1755, an entire skeleton of a 



