﻿GREAT OOLITE. 



29 



From the similarity of texture of the vertebrae of the new genus of Saurian 

 so indicated to that in the limb-bone from " Blechingdon, 5 ' Enslow, I suggested that it 

 might belong to Cetiosaurus. 1 The cetaceous hypothesis of the huge Oolitic Vertebrate 

 was thereupon abandoned, and my determination was adopted in the second edition of the 

 ' Bridgewater Treatise,' and also by Lyell, who gives a reduced cut of the fossil in his 

 ' Manual of Geology,' ch. xx. 



In 1848 Dr. Buckland informed me of the discovery of a femur, 4 feet 



3 inches in length, which, from the correspondence of its texture with that of the 

 metatarsal from Blechingdon, and also with that of some fragmentary long bones from 

 Blisworth, Northamptonshire, I referred to the genus Cetiosaurus, and to the species 

 from the Great Oolite called Cetiosaurus longus? 



More recently (1868 — 70) a considerable proportion of the skeleton has been discovered 

 in the quarries of the Great Oolite of Enslow Rocks at Kirtlington Station, eight miles 

 north of Oxford, the bones of which more nearly approach in size to the type 

 specimen of Cetiosaurus longus? 



Such of the trunk-vertebras as were sufficiently entire appear to have come from 

 the fore part of that region, and show the opisthoccelian character of those vertebras 

 as in certain Dinosaurs. I, therefore, visited Oxford for the purpose of studying these 

 remains. 



In the best preserved anterior dorsal vertebra the parapophysis, short but large in 

 vertical extent, shows remains of the articular surface for the head of the rib. The 

 diapophysis, supported by a strong buttress-like ridge, is directed upward and outward 

 at an angle of 45° with the neural spine. The distance between the articular surface for 

 the ' tubercle ' and that for the ' head ' of the rib is ten inches, which gives the extent of 

 the ' neck ' of the rib at this fore part of the thorax. The neural spine is strengthened 

 by lateral buttress-like ridges rising from the neural platform ; it is of a massive 

 quadrate form and seems to have terminated obtusely. The zygapophyses are supported 

 by buttress-like vertical ridges. 4 All the characters of this massive vertebra bespeak the 

 great strength of the back-bone of the enormous saurian. The total vertical extent of 

 the above vertebra, which is incomplete at the wider part of the centrum, is 2 feet 



4 inches ; the breadth at the diapophyses is 1 foot 6 inches. 



The vertebra which is the subject of Plate X, from a hinder position of the trunk than 



p. 459) ; but I have since had reason to conclude that it was occupied in the living Saurian by unossified 

 chondrine. 



1 1 Report,' ut supra, p. 101. 



2 lb., ib. 



3 "Vertebrae 8, 9, and 11 inches in diameter," "monstrous ribs," "femora upwards of 5 feet in 

 length."— 'Athenaeum,' April 2nd, 1870. 



4 "On Cetiosaurus from Oolitic Formations," ' Proc. Geol. Soc.,' 1841, 1. c, p. 459. Cetiosaurus 

 longus is defined as in the 1 Report,' and distinguished from the Cetiosaurus brevis of the Wealden Forma- 

 tions, pp. 101, 102, which will probably prove to be referable to a distinct cetiosauroid genus. 



