84 University of Kansas Geological Survey. 



of the rich material now in the University of Kansas — material 

 that is sufficient to elucidate nearly all that is to be learned 

 about the Kansas genera and species. Little or nothing has 

 been taken at second hand from other writers, so far as the 

 Kansas Mosasaurs are concerned, and for nearly every state- 

 ment herein contained the present writer is alone responsible. 

 The general reader who does not care to go through the neces- 

 sary mass of descriptive matter is referred to the concluding 

 chapter, on the "Restorations of the Kansas Mosasaurs." 



The first specimen of Mosasaurs of which we have historical 

 knowledge was discovered by Doctor Hoffman, a surgeon of 

 Maestricht, in 1780, and has been the subject of numerous de- 

 scriptions and discussions by some of the most famous natural- 

 ists of the world. Its discovery, and the subsequent destination 

 of the fossil, is the subject of the following account by M. 

 Fauj as-Saint-Fond, in his "Natural History of St. Peter's 

 Mount" : 



"In one of the galleries or subterraneous quarries of St. Pe- 

 ter's Mount, at Maestricht, at the distance of about 500 paces 

 from the principal entrance, and at ninety feet below the sur- 

 face, the quarrymen exposed part of the skull of a large animal 

 imbedded in the stone. They stopped their labors to give notice 

 to Doctor Hoffman, a surgeon at Maestricht, who had for some 

 years been collecting fossils from the quarries, and who had 

 liberally remunerated the laborers for them. Doctor Hoffman, 

 observing the specimen to be the most important that had yet 

 been discovered, took every precaution to secure it entire. After 

 having succeeded in removing a large block of stone containing 

 it, and reducing the mass to a proper condition, it was trans- 

 ported to his home in triumph. But this great prize in natural 

 history, which had given Doctor Hoffman so much pleasure, 

 now became the source of chagrin. A canon of Maestricht, 

 who owned the ground beneath which was the quarry whence 

 the skull was obtained, when the fame of the specimen reached 

 him, laid claim to it under certain feudal rights and applied to 

 law for its recoveiy. Doctor Hoffman resisted, and the matter 

 becoming serious, the chapter of canons came to the support of 



