CHEATS AND HOAXES. 3) 
to several individual skeletons of an extinct marine cetacean , termed 
Basilosaurus by the American naturalists, and better known in this 
country by that of Zeuglodon , a term signifying yoked teeth. Mr. Koch 
is the person who, a few years ago, had a fine collection of fossil 
bones of elephants and mastodons, out of which he made up an 
enormous skeleton, and exhibited it in the Egyptian Hall, Picca- 
dilly, under the name of Missourtum. This collection was purchased 
by the trustees of the British Museum, and from it were selected 
the bones which now constitute the matchless skeleton of a Mastodon 
in our National Gallery of Organic Remains’. 
“Not content with the interest which the fossils which he col- 
lected in various parts of the United States really possess, Mr. Koch, 
with the view of exciting the curiosity of the ignorant multitude, 
strung together all the vertebrae he could obtain of the Paszlosaurus , 
and arranged them in a serpentine form; manufactured a skull and 
claws, and exhibited the monster as a fossil Sea-Serpent, under 
the name above mentioned — /Hydrarchos. But the trick was im- 
mediately exposed by the American naturalists, and the true nature 
of the fossil bones pointed out. 
“Bones of the Basilosaurus have been found in many parts of 
Alabama and South Carolina, in green sand belonging to a very 
ancient (Hocene) tertiary formation. Hundreds of vertebrae, bones 
of the extremities, portions of the cranium, and of the jaws with 
teeth, have from time to time been collected. Remains of species 
of the same genus have also been found near Bordeaux and in Malta”. 
“Professor Owen has shown that the original animal was a marine 
cetacean, holding an intermediate place between the Cachelots and 
the herbivorous species. It must have attained a length equal to 
that of the largest living whales; for a series of vertebrae was ob- 
served zm situ, that extended in a line 65 feet. An interesting 
Memoir on the Basilosaurus by Dr. Gibbes, of Columbia, was 
published in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 
Philadelphia, Vol. I, 27 Series, 1847; and a Memoir on the remains 
of the same animal, by Prof. Owen appeared in the “'T'ransactions 
of the Geological Society of London’, Vol. VI; a brief notice of 
which is inserted in my “Medals of Creation” p. 826, under the 
name of Zeuglodon cetoides’’. 
“Gideon Algernon Mantell”. 
“19, Chestersquare, Pimlico, Oct. 31. 1848”. 
In the Proc. Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist. (Vol. III, p. 328, Dec. 1850) 
we read: 
