FOSSIL REPTILES. 231 



seen in them which have been referred to ammonites, but are 

 as likely to belong to planorbes. There is also the impression 

 of the tail of a small fish, and some remains of an insect. 



The bones themselves are browner than the stone. On being 

 analyzed, they were found not to have lost all their animal 

 matter, and particularly to have preserved a remarkable pro- 

 portion of phosphoric acid. 



The largest of these plates, about three feet long and fifteen 

 inches in breadth, contains the head, trunk, and tail of the 

 animal, from one extremity to the other, and very little de- 

 ranged, and a hind foot almost entire, detached from the trunk 

 and encrusted at some distance. Scaly parts are also mingled 

 with the bones. M. Soemmering has published an excellent 

 figure of it. In it is to be seen the lower jaw at its upper 

 face, having twenty-five or twenty-six teeth on each side. The 

 upper jaw is seen at the palatine surface, also the upper paries, 

 and other parts of the cranium together, but a little detached 

 from the muzzle. The condyle for the articulation with the 

 atlas, and the articulary facet of the tympanic bone for the 

 lower jaw, are also distinctly to be recognized. The series of 

 the vertebrae is deranged only towards the end of the tail, and 

 contains seventy-nine. Those of the neck have lost their 

 transverse apophyses. Twenty-three ribs, more or less entire, 

 are all out of place, or nearly so. A fragment of sternum, of 

 the OS ilii, an ischium of the left side, and a coracoid bone, 

 (these three are detached,) and some other bones, not so well 

 determined, are to be seen. The left hind foot is in its place, 

 but detached and disarticulated. The right hind foot, on the 

 contrary, is cast out of its place, but has preserved its parts in. 

 their natural connexions. 



This figure is as sufficient for determining the characters of 

 the animal, as if the latter were under one's eyes itself. On the 

 first glance, this fossil was found to resemble the little gavial 

 more than any other known animal. The proportions, number of 



