
86 THE FOSSIL REPTILES OF NEW JERSEY. 
them. But there was a remarkable arrangement to obviate 
any inconvenience arising from these points. While the 
branches of the under jaw had no sutural connection, and 
possessed independent motion, as in all serpents, they had 
the additional peculiarity, not known elsewhere among verte- 
brates (except in a few snakes), of a movable articulation a 
little behind the middle of each. Its direction being ob- 
lique, the flexure was outwards and a little downwards, 
greatly expanding the width of the space between them, and 
allowing their tips to close a little. A loose flexible pouch- 
like throat would then receive the entire prey, swallowed be- 
"tween the branches of the jaw; the necessity of holding it 
long in the teeth, or of passing it between the short quad- 
rate bones would not exist. Of course the glottis and tongue 
would be forwards. The physiognomy of the reptile, with 
apparently dislocated jaws and swollen throat, as he passed a 
Chimera to his internal laboratory, could scarcely be prepos- 
sessing. 
The Clidastes and Macrosaurus were the more slender of 
these heteroclite beings, while Mosasaurus embraces the most 
gigantic. The Clidastes iguanavus could not have been 
shorter than thirty feet, and presented a reduction of the 
length of the paddles, consistent with its thoroughly serpent- 
like vertebral column. Macrosaurus validus considerably 
exceeded this length. Mosasaurus Mitchellii and .M. Missu- 
riensis propelled sixty feet of length through the waves, 
while no portion of these have been found to equal the M. 
maximus, which have recently been exhumed. 
The reptilian whales of those troublous times, were the 
Cimoliasaurs and Elasmosaurs. These were the Plesiosaurs 
of Cretaceous life, and probably had a great range over the 
earth. Portions of them have been found in England and 
North America to our far western regions. Cimolinsaurds 
ced to have resembled Plesiosaurus in general, while 
us mosaurus added to its type an enormous and flattened 
tail, relatively a as Jong as that of the Mosasaur, or the modern 





