68 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. in. 



antediluvian hewer of wood. R. made a pleasant 

 stay at Mr. Armstrong's and returned home on the 

 1 6th.' 



In this year appeared an interesting paper by 

 Owen * On the Affinities of Stereognathus Ooliti- 

 cus,' 2 a mammal from the Stonesfield slate of Stones- 

 field, belonging to the horizon of the Lower Great 

 Oolite. The remains submitted to Owen consisted 

 of two to three inches of a jaw, containing three 

 molar teeth. In his paper Owen gives a clear 

 statement of the province and application of 

 physiology in the determination of fossil remains, 

 and in the singularly cautious manner peculiar to 

 him compared the stereognathus' jaw with that of 

 a hoofed mammal. In the light of more modern 

 science, however, it is thought to belong to a 

 peculiar group intermediate between the marsu- 

 pials and the monotremes. 3 The paper attracted 

 some attention at the time, for the bare suggestion 

 of a hoofed mammal or ungulate so low down 

 in the series of rocks and so remote in age would 

 throw a new and unexpected light upon the whole 

 of palaeozoology, the known remains being ex- 

 clusively those of marsupials at that time. 



Towards the end of 1857 Owen was offered 

 and accepted an appointment which some years 

 previously, while at the College of Surgeons, he 

 was obliged to decline : it was the Fullerian Profes- 



2 Quarterly Journal Geol. 3 Animals like the Echidna 



Soc. 1857. and Ornithorhynchus. 



