106 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
" The Squalodon and the Zeuglodon evidently resemble each other in 
the singular conformation of their dental system. But what is the degree 
of their affinity ? To what family do they belong ? Or do they form a 
type completely lost ? and, in the case of an affirmative, what place ought 
to be assigned to them ? 
" These questions, and many others, wait for solution ; and it will be 
readily conceived what high value is attached to the discovery of some 
bones of the Squalodon in the Crag of Antwerp. 
" We are fortunately now in possession of many important portions of 
the head, the extremity of the upper maxillary, the intermaxillary with 
its teeth, the posterior part of the palate, many fragments of the inferior 
maxillary, and other parts of the skeleton. 
" Lastly, to make out every possible part of these precious relics, the 
Government has, at the request of the Academy, commissioned me to 
visit the principal Museums of Germany and Austria ; and we hope shortly 
to produce a work containing a reply to these diflPerent questions. The 
museum which most interested us in our last journey is the Vaterlandisches 
Museum of Lintz, which contains the most precious remains of the Squalo- 
don that are known. They were deposited there by M. Ehrlich. Thanks 
to the intelligent and active care of that able naturalist, this Museum con- 
tains, moreover, other fossils of high interest from the basin of Lintz. 
" We have found tliere two much-broken portions of the cranium of the 
Squalodon : knowing before the base of the palate, and possessing frag- 
ments of tbe jaws with the teeth, and moreover the upper maxillary, it was 
not difficult for us to reconstruct the head of this aquatic carnivore. The 
dental system of these animals is equally well known to us now, even to 
the principal differences the species present between each other, — at most 
only a doubt remams on the subject of one of the molars. 
" We will say a word on its characters. 
" The cranium is greatly depressed ; the parietals form a part the ce- 
phalic box, and the frontal bones extend regularly forward and over the 
side, without being folded back [refouUs] by the nasal cavities, as in the 
true cetacea. The zyomatic arches are large, but incomplete. The teeth 
are of three kinds, but put on only two ditferent forms ; the incisors and 
the premolars are like the canines ; six incisors are implanted in the bone of 
that name, and of these six incisors the two middle ones are directed for- 
wards in the direction of the axis of the bod}^ not like the sword of the 
narwhal, but more like the great incisors of the shrew-mouse. The canines 
are succeeded by five simple premolars, regularly spaced ; then seven true 
molars with two fangs and a compressed and crenulated crown (chiefly on 
the hinder edge) complete this singular dental system. 
" We have been able to convince ourselves, also, from the tolerably 
perfect head of the Squalodon at Lintz, that, contrary to our anticipations, 
the nasal holes are directed from back to front, and differed in this respect 
from the existing blowing-whales. In the latter we know the cavity of 
the nostrils rises straight up, or even slightly backwards, and that it is this 
direction which permits their spouting perpendicularly their columns of 
water, or rather of vapour, from their nostrils. If we wished to figure the 
Squalodon as the dolphins are commonly represented, it should be drawn 
ejecting columns of vapour obliquely forwards, and not upwards. We 
endeavoured to profit, also, by our sojourn in Germany, in learning what 
were the other inhabitants of the sea which nurtured the Squalodon, in 
order to compare it with our Crag Sea. There is in the same Museum at 
Lintz a cranium of the highest interest in this comparative study. All the 
posterior portion is tolerably complete. It approaches closely by its size 
