30 FOSSIL REPTILIA OF THE 



" In one of the great galleries or subterraneous quarries in which the cretaceous 

 stone of St. Peter's Mount is worked, about five hundred paces from the entrance, 

 and ninety feet below the surface, the quarry-men exposed part of the skull of a large 

 animal in a block of the stone which they were engaged in detaching. On this discovery 

 they suspended their work, and went to inform Dr. Hoffmann, surgeon to the forces at 

 Macstricht, who for some years had been collecting the fossils from this quarry, remu- 

 nerating the workmen liberally for the discovery and preservation of them. Dr. Hoffmann, 

 arriving at the spot, saw with extreme pleasure the indications of a magnificent 

 specimen ; he directed the operations of the men, so that they worked out the block 

 without injury to the fossil, and he then with his own hands cleared away, by degrees, 

 the yielding matrix, and exposed the extraordinary jaws and teeth, which have since been 

 the subject of so many drawings,* descriptions, and discussions. This fine specimen 

 which Hoffmann had transported with so much satisfaction to his collection, soon, 

 however, became a source of much chagrin to him. Dr. Goddin, one of the canons 

 of Maestricht, who owned the surface of the soil beneath which was the quarry 

 whence the fossil had been obtained, when the fame of the specimen reached his ears, 

 pleaded certain feudal rights in support of his claim to it. Hoffmann resisted, and 

 the canon went to law. The whole chapter supported their reverend brother, and 

 the decree ultimately went against the poor surgeon, who lost both his specimen and 

 his money, for he was made to pay the costs of the action." M. Faujas St. Fond, 

 the instrument of the more forcible and summary mode by which the French seized 

 upon the unique specimen, moralizes in his narrative of the robbery in the following 

 strain: — "The canon Goddin, leaving all remorse to the judges who had pronounced 

 the iniquitous sentence, became the happy and contented possessor of this unique 

 example of its kind. But justice, though tardy, comes at last." (Ij M. Faujas then 

 proceeds to narrate how, in the bombardment of the town, directions were given to 

 spare the suburb in which the famous fossil was understood to be preserved ; and 

 how, after the capitulation, the French grenadiers discovered, seized, and bore off the 

 specimen in triumph to the commissarial residence ; and concludes by a paean to the 

 " excellent soldiers who always knew how to appreciate and respect the monuments 

 of the arts and sciences."! 



The occurrence of remains of the Mosasaurus in England was first noticed by, 

 Dr. Mantel], in a work entitled ' The Geology of the South-east of England," 8vo, 

 1833, in which woodcuts are given at p. 146, of a dorsal vertebrae, and of two 

 caudal vertebrae, which were found in the upper (?) chalk, near Lewes. The body of 

 the dorsal vertebra is said to be " about two inches long, and 1*4 inch high;" and the 



* First by Buchoz, in his ' Dons de la Nature,' tab. 68 ; then by Faujas St. Fond, in plate iv of his 

 ' Histoire Naturelle de la Montagne de St. Pierre ;' afterwards by Cuvier, in his 'Ossemens Fossiles,' torn, t, 

 pt. ii, pi. xviii; copied by Buckland iu the 'Bridgewater Treatise,' pi. 20. 



t Tom. cit., p. 62. 



