GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



75 



bones sawed off, and fitted on the jugal bone of the 

 right side. 



Thus the remains at last met with an honorable bu- 

 rial, on the eve of departure for England, where they 

 would no doubt have astonished the natives; both as to 

 the gigantic fossil productions of the new world, and as 

 specimens of the critical acumen of our scientific ob- 

 servers. 



The articulating surface plates, or epiphyses of the 

 vertebrae of whales, are not unfrequently found sepa- 

 rate, both fossil and recent ; they have occasionally 

 given rise to false notions, and to the dissemination of 

 error. The 66 New Fossil Genus" of Raffinesque, nam- 

 ed < 6 Nephr osteon," (Fid. Atlantic Journal,) and the 

 bone on which the genus is constructed, and which this 

 author considers as a portion of the head-plate of a fossil 

 saurian, has no other foundation than one of these epiphy- 

 ses from the remains of a recent spermaceti whale. 



CLASS AVES. 



The fossil remains of birds are of rare occurrence in 

 any country, but particularly so in America ; only one 

 specimen clearly ascertained has fallen under our im- 

 mediate inspection. This consisted in a femur, imper- 

 fect at its upper extremity, of an individual allied to 

 the genus Scolopax, obtained by the late S. W. Conrad. 

 The bone appears to be perfectly mineralized* Cab. of 

 the Acad. Nat. Sciences, Philad. 



Locality, from a u marl-pit" in New Jersey. 



