334 FOSSIL REPTILES. 



and must have seen human skeletons, to deceive himself so 

 grossly — for this fancy, which he reproduced so pertinaciously, 

 and which has so often been repeated on his authority, does 

 not rest on a particle of foundation, nor will bear the slightest 

 examination. 



John Gesner, again, quotes this specimen for an anthropolite 

 in his treatise of Petrifactions, printed at Leyden, in 1758. It 

 appears, however, that this naturalist, having become proprietor 

 of a similar piece, was afterwards the first to raise doubts on 

 the species which he had furnished, and to conjecture that it 

 might be nothing but the silurus glanis of Linneus, an opinion 

 which naturalists , then adopted with a confidence equal to that 

 which they had accorded to Scheuchzer. 



This last specimen was not engraved, no more than another 

 which was said to be in the Convent of the Augustine friars at 

 CEningen. But another more complete one than Scheuchzer's 

 was discovered, which belonged to Dr. Ammann, of Zurich, and 

 has since passed to the British Museum. An engraving of it 

 was published by M. Karg, in the Memoirs of the Society of 

 Suabia. 



The simple comparison of the first of these specimens with 

 the skeleton of a man, ought to have been at once sufficient to 

 disabuse any one of the notion that it was an anthropolite. 



The proportions of the parts present of themselves the most 

 sensible differences. The size of the head is nearly that of a 

 man of middle size, but the length of the sixteen vertebrae is 

 some inches more considerable than it ought to be ; and we 

 find, accordingly, that each vertebra, taken separately, is longer 

 in proportion to its breadth than in man. 



The other differences derived from the form of the parts are 

 not less striking. The roundness of the head, which must have 

 been the principal cause of illusion, presents, however, a very 

 remote relation with that of man. What is become of all the 

 upper part, all that there should be of forehead ? And if it be 

 supposed that the front has been removed, then the total 



