218 DESCRIPTION OP VERTEBRATE REMAINS, CHIEPLY 



condition is conical. The surface of the fang exhibits strongly the concentric 

 edges of the dentinal layers composing the tooth, which perhaps have been thus 

 rendered so conspicuously evident by the eroding action of the ocean water. The 

 end of the fang presents a shallow half conical pulp cavity. The specimen in its 

 present state is less than three inches long, and 10 lines by 9 lines in its thickness. 

 Figure 11, PI. xxx., represents what appears to be a small Cetacean tooth, found 

 with the preceding specimen in the marl of Nash Co., N. C. It is solid through- 

 out, the lower extremity having been broken squarely off. It is curved cylindrical 

 with a worn conical point. It appears to be devoid of a cemental layer, and below 

 the conical summit exhibits a close series of circular striae of the dentinal laminae. 

 The length of the specimen is 14 lines; its thickness, 21 lines. 



ZIPHIOID CETACEANS. 

 The Ziphioid Cetaceans, of Avhich remains appear to be frequent among the 

 fossils of the South Carolina phosphate beds, belong to the sub-order of the Odon- 

 tocetes, or Toothed Whales, although they are almost destitute of the organs from 

 which these are, named. They have no functional teeth in the upper jaw, and 

 with the exception of one, or at most two pair, they are absent in the lower jaw. 

 The rostrum or forepart of the skull is elongated and remarkable for its dense 

 ivory-like character, which often leads detached fossil specimens to be considered 

 as being petrified. 



CHONEZIPHIUS. 

 The genus Choneziphius, to which I suppose several of the Ashley fossils 

 belong, is thus characterized by Prof. Gervais : — Independently of the form of the 

 rostrum, in which the intermaxillaries are co-ossified at their internal border and 

 the maxillaries are so united inferiorly as to permit only a narrow portion of the 

 vomer to be seen, the genus is also distinguished by the want of ossification of the 

 supra- vomerine cartilage, the absence of which leaves a fistulous excavation ex- 

 tending the length of the rostrum. Interocular space broad and flattened ; a pair 

 of infundibuliform fossse occupying the region near the external nares, with the 

 right fossa much larger than the left, and each ending in a vascular foramen which 

 penetrates the rostrum by extending into the intermaxillaries. 



Choneziphius trachops. 

 Leidy : Proceedings Academy Natural Sciences, Philadelpliia, 18Y6, 81. 



The species is indicated by a specimen found in the Ashley phosphate beds 

 worked by the Pacific Guano Co., and is represented in fig. 2, PI. xxx., and fig. 1, 



