O.V THE BONES OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS. 405 



Article If. 



On the Small Fossil Hippopotamus. 

 In the programe of the present work, printed at Baudouin in 1797, 

 by order of the first class of the Institute, I announced in very brief 

 terms the existence of this species, as remarkable as it is new. 



The brevity of that notice was pronounced by some naturalists to 

 border on obscurity *. The details upon which I am about to enter 

 at present, will, I feel confident, obviate this defect. 



The block from which I derived this species had lain so long in one 

 of the magazines of the Museum, that nobody could be found capable 

 of giving an account of its origin : however, it struck me, by the quan- 

 tity of bones and teeth with which it was as it were larded on every 

 side, that it bore a great resemblance to the osseous slabs of Gibralter, 

 Dalmatia, and Cette, except that the paste, instead of being composed 

 of calcareous and stalactitical substances, was a sort of freestone, cal- 

 careous at bottom, uniformly filling all the intervals of the bones ; and 

 that they formed a proportion incomparably more considerable of the 

 whole mass, than they did in the slabs just mentioned. 



This dross, when examined by M. Brongniart, was found to be com- 

 posed of two-thirds of carbonated chalk : upon thirty of these parts 

 there were nine of sand, mixed with a little clay. 



• Considerable time and patience were expended in disengaging a 

 part of these bones from the stone which encrusted them. To effect 

 this, we laboured for several days with the chisel, the file, and the 

 augur, and we found ourselves under the necessity of sacrificing many, 

 in order to preserve some entire : but we were amply rewarded for 

 our trouble, by at length bringing to light the remains of an animal . 

 of which nobody but ourselves had ever entertained the slightest idea. 



A considerable time now elapsed, without my being able to meet 

 with any stone similar in substance to the preceding. At length, 

 happening to pass through Bourdeaux, in March, 1803, I paid a visit 

 to the fine Museum of Natural History then belonging to the senator, 

 M. Journu-Aubert, and which he has since bequeathed to his native 

 town. Here I recognized, at the first glance, a block quite similar to 

 that which I had taken to pieces in the Museum : but unfortunately, it 

 was also without any references as to the place from which it had 

 been extracted ; and neither M. Villers Professor of Natural History at 

 Bourdeaux, who had the care of this collection, nor M. Journu-Aubert 

 himself, who happened to be at Bourdeaux presiding over the electoral 

 body, could give me any information on the subject. M. Journu-Aubert 

 has since most generously presented' this precious specimen to our 

 Museum, and has thus enabled me to perfect the knowledge of this 

 remarkable species, by the addition of other bones to those which had 

 been furnished by the first. 



From these blocks I have extracted jaw teeth of various descriptions, 

 some canine and some incisors : fig. 7, plate 32, represents one of 

 the largest of these jaw teeth. Its crown is elongated, and presents 



* Faujas, Essay on Geology, vol. i, p. 366. 

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