510 



Bafinesque' s Atlantic Journal, 



pie [/ / /] in Kentucky. He thinks this akin to mazama, which 

 was somewhat similar to the antelopes, but having teeth, " more 

 like some carnivorous animals, but no canine tooth," " latest geo- 

 logical age, later than No. 1 , period of the Mastodons.'''' We were 

 just told that Mazama Salinaria belonged to the " latest geolo- 

 logical age," but panallodon it seems belongs to an age later 

 than the latest. Whether the words " period of the mastodons" 

 refer to the mazamaic or panallodontic period, we are left to 

 guess. Hitherto we have been exceedingly puzzled to assign a 

 geological period for the existence of the mastodon ; but it is now 

 settled, that the mastodontic period was contemporaneous with that 

 of a hit of horn f-oe inches long, or with carnivorous antelopes. Here 

 is a stride in the history of extinct fossil animals ! 



After this we have No. 3, Taurus gigas, of Rafinesque, a 

 " beautiful and perfect tooth of a bull," which, a few lines af- 

 terwards, is stated, " must have belonged to a very large ox." 

 This animal, we are told, was of the " age of the mastodons." 

 Here is a bull genus, established upon the strength of what no 

 doubt is a recent buffalo's tooth, with which the western countr}?- 

 abounds. There is something worse than puerility in this. Ra- 

 finesque knew that the genus bos was established for the receipt 

 of all kinds of bovine remains, and that Dr. Harlan's species of 

 bos latifrons was universally received, and, to which his bovine 

 tooth, if properly fossil, should have been referred. Rafinesque, 

 who has bitterly complained of others for trespassing upon his 

 grounds, shows here the budding forth of the same talent in him- 

 self, to more exquisite proofs of which we shall by and by come. 



Among the fishes we have No. 6, JVephrosteon ; but we shall 

 cite the description, as a specimen of the Professor's style. 



• " No. 6, Nephrosteon, Raf. Very singular fossil bone of a fish from the diluvial 

 regions of Louisiana. It must have been the head-plate of a huge Jish twenty 

 feet long or more, but I know of none with similar shields. It is a fine perfect 

 flat bone, yellowish white, solid, hard and heavy, rounded, with a reniform base, 

 eight inches broad and six and a half long ; half an inch thick ; edge entire, thick ; 

 surface above nearly smooth, with an areolar depression round the centre, which 

 has several unequal chinks. Lower surface entirely covered with vermicular an- 

 astomosed elevations, forming irregular pits and prominences. Is it the bony shield 

 of the head of megasauriis ? or some other fossil reptile ?" 



Before we give Mr. Rafinesque an answer to his question, we 

 must tell him that it is inexcusable in one, who pretends to write 

 on geological matters, to commit so great a blunder as to call 



