348 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



DESCRIPTION OF THE REMAINS OF THE "BASILOSAURUS," A 

 LARGE FOSSIL MARINE ANIMAL, RECENTLY DISCOVERED 

 IN THE HORIZONTAL LIMESTONE OF ALABAMA. By Rich- 

 ard Harlak, M.D., &c. 



In the Transactions of the American Philosophical 

 Society for 1834, will be found the description of an 

 enormous fossil vertebra, presented to the Society by 

 Judge Bree, from the ^' marly" banks of the Washita 

 river, Arkansa territory. We ventured to refer this 

 bone to the vertebra of a large extinct Saurien, of a non- 

 descript genus, and proposed to name the animal provi- 

 sionally Basilosaurus/^ 



Accompanying this vertebra, was a mass of the matrix 

 which enveloped the fossil, and contained fossil shells, 

 which Mr Conrad referred to the genus Corbula, and to 

 a species found plentifully in the Alabama tertiary de- 

 posits. Regarding our opinion then expressed, as to the 

 geological age of this marly deposit^ our subsequent in- 

 formation furnishes no fact either to confirm or to dis- 

 prove it. 



In the course of last autumn Mr Conrad received speci- 

 mens of fossil vertebrse, fragments of lower jaw, &c., from 

 Alabama, about 30 miles north west of Clairborne, which 

 resemble, in all essential particulars, that previously 

 described in the American Philosophical Transactions, 

 as above noticed. These fossils occur on the plantation 

 of the Hon. John G. Creagh, Esq., in a limestone rock, 

 of so solid a structure as to render blasting requisite 

 in order to obtain the bones, which are consequently 

 much broken — scarcely a single specimen having been 

 obtained perfect. 



Soon after the receipt of these bones, above noticed^ 



