3*24 FOSSIL REPTILES. 



serve as bases for the future re-erection of additional monu- 

 ments of the ancient world. 



Some very large ones, from Havre and Honfleur, have a 

 cylindrical body, nearly as long as wide, marked on each side 

 with a small fosset, with plane, circular faces, a medullary 

 canal very narrow^ and an annular part not articulated. The 

 spinous process is high and straight. The transverse processes, 

 at the level of the medullary canal, are gross, cylindrical, and 

 vertically dilated at the end ; and, w^hat is very remarkable, the 

 posterior articular processes are small, pointed, approximating, 

 and go into two small fossets, between the anterior processes, 

 and in front of the base of the spinous. 



These would appear to belong to a species of saurian, much 

 resembling the plesiosaurus, yet to be described. Their only 

 differences from the vertebrae of this last genus relate to a 

 greater proportional breadth of body, and that the little fossets, 

 or dimples, are hollowed at the sides of the bone, instead of 

 underneath. Some from Newcastle were smaller, but their 

 proportions of body were the same, and the little fossets only 

 were wanting. Some large bones of the extremities were found 

 along with the vertebrae now described, which appeared to have 

 belonged to the same species, whatever it was. 



In the environs of Luneville the remains of a saurian have 

 been discovered, in many respects approximating to the croco- 

 diles. This species, as new to geology as to zoology, was 

 found by M. Gaillardeau, a physician of that city, in certain 

 quarries in the neighbourhood, used for the purposes of build- 

 ing. The stone composing them is compact, in horizontal 

 strata of moderate thickness, separated by thin strata formed of 

 debris of shells, or entire shells accumulated together. Tere- 

 bratulae and mytulites are especially in great abundance there. 

 This formation, in which many other fossil remains were found, 

 belongs to the inferior strata of the order of Jura, or to those 

 above what is called Alpine limestone. 



Here were found bones which manifestly had appertained 



