50 ME. E. W. HOOLEY ON THE SKULL AND [Feb. I907, 



3. On the Skull and geeatee Poetion of the Skeleton of Gojstio- 

 pholis cbassidens from the Wealden Shales of Atheefield 

 (Isle of Wight). By Reginald Walter Hoolet, F.G.S. 

 (Read November 21st, 1906.) 



[Plates II-IV.] 



I. HlSTOEY OF THE DlSCOVEET OF THE SPECIMEN. 



In the late autumn of 1904, at a place locally called ' Tie Pits/ 

 near Atherfield Point (Isle of Wight), a large mass of the cliff, 

 comprising many thousand tons of the Wealden Shales, subsided, 

 pushing its foot across the beach, until below low-water line. As 

 the sea washed away the base, the mass continued sinking, and fresh 

 horizons were denuded. In 1905 a series of heavy ' ground-seas ' 

 cast up blocks of limestone and ironstone, containing crocodile- 

 bones, which were discovered on the sand, between high- and low- 

 water marks. The skull came ashore in six pieces, and on as 

 many different occasions. 



Scutes and fragments of bones were constantly picked up. One 

 block found by a local fisherman was forwarded to the Sedgwick 

 Museum, at Cambridge. After correspondence with Mr. Henry 

 Keeping, the well-known Curator, I was put in communication 

 with Prof. T. McK. Hughes, F.R.S., who, with great liberality 

 and courtesy, wrote that in 'the interest of scientific progress' he 

 thought that their block should be handed over to me, and this was 

 accordingly done. The collection of the skull, etc. would have been 

 impossible, but for the aid of Mr. Walter White, the coxswain of the 

 Atherfield lifeboat, who obtained the separate portions by visiting 

 the beach at every tide. The horizon whence the specimen was 

 derived is 80 to 90 feet below the top of the Wealden Shales. 



II. HlSTOEY OF THE BRITISH GoNIOPHOLIDJ3. 



The genus Goniopholis was first founded in 1841 by Owen. 1 The 

 type-specimen, named by him Goniopholis crassidens, was obtained 

 from the Purbeck Beds of Swanage, in 1837, by Robert Trotter, 

 F.G.S., and presented by him to Mantell, whose collection is now 

 in the possession of the British Museum (Natural History). It 

 consists of the left mandibular ramus, teeth, scutes, vertebrae, and 

 sundry bones of the pelvic region, lying on two slabs of Purbeck 

 Limestone, one being the counterpart of the other. 



Mantell had previously, in the 3rd edition of his ' Wonders of 

 Geology ' 1839, 2 made known and figured the fossil under the name 

 of the ' Swanage Crocodile.' It was described again by him in the 



1 ' Rep. Brit. Foss. Rept.' pt. ii, Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1841 (Plymouth) p. 69. 



2 Vol. i, pp. 387-89 & pi. i. 



