REMARKS ON THE TYPE OF THE FOSSIL 



CETACEAN AGOROPHIUS 



PYGMiEUS (Muller). 



By Fbedeeick W. True. 

 (With One Plate.^) 



Somewhat more than fifty years ago the Smithsonian Institution, then 

 recently founded, undertook the publication of a number of memoirs by Prof. 

 Louis Agassiz, and prepared some lithographic plates to accompany them. 

 Before the work had proceeded very far, Professor Agassiz made other arrange- 

 ments for the publication of his writings and the plates were never issued. One 

 of these unpublished plates represents the type-specimen of a very remarkable 

 species of fossil cetacean, now known as AgoropMus pygmceus (Miiller), and on 

 account of circumstances which are detailed below it has been thought desirable 

 to issue it, with a brief explanation as to its importance. 



In 1847 Prof. F. S. Holmes and Prof. L. R. Gibbes of Charleston, South 

 Carolina, obtained from the Eocene marl of Ashley river at Greer's Landing, 

 about 10 miles from the city, an imperfect cetacean skull. ^ The specimen was 

 placed in the hands of Mr. M. Tuomey, Geologist of the State of South Carolina, 

 who published an account of it, with two figures, in the Proceedings of the Phila- 

 delphia Academy of Natural Sciences,' and also in the Journal of the Academy,* 

 referring it to the genus Zeuglodon (or Basilosaurus). 



These publications attracted the attention of Prof. J. Muller of Berlin, Ger- 

 many, who was at that time engaged in the study of Zeuglodon (or Basilosaurus), 

 and an account of the specimen, with a copy of Tuomey's figures, appeared in 

 1849, in his work on that genus, under the name of Zeuglodon pygmceusJ' 



'The plate bears the legend " Phocodon holmesii Agass.", a manuscript name. 



'See Tourney's Report on Geology of South Carolina, 1848, p. 166. 



•Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 3, 1847, pp. 151-153. 



♦Jour. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1, 1847, pp. 16-17. 



^ Zeiiglodonten von Nordamerica, 1849, p. 29, pi. 23, flga. 1, 2. 



