SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY, 
315 
-which have the specific gravity 1*54 at 10° C., and melt at 208° C. This body, 
which has been found on analysis to have the composition indicated by the 
formula C 6 H 12 0 6 + 2H 2 0, does not reduce an alcoholic solution of a copper 
salt, and cannot be fermented. When oxidized with nitric acid it does not 
yield muric or oxalic acid, but forms a new body, the properties of which 
have not yet been investigated. Nucite, the name which the authors have 
given to this variety of sugar, is a body which closely resembles inosite in 
its characters. — Comptes rendus , Feb. 26, 1877. 
GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY. 
The. Mosasauridce . — Professor Owen lately read a paper before the Geo- 
logical Society, on the rank and affinities of the Mosasaurians, that curious 
family of Peptiles, the remains of which were originally discovered in 
St. Peter’s Mount, near Maestricht. The Maestricht species was referred 
to the Cetacea by the great anatomist Campu, and to the Crocodilia by 
Faujas de St. Fond, whilst Cuvier regarded it as a true Lizard. Lately 
numerous remains of similar animals have been found in the Cretaceous rocks 
of America, and in examining these Professor Cope was led to recognize in 
them certain affinities to the Serpents ; he spoke of them as “ veritable sea- 
serpents,” and formed them into an order which he called Pythonomorpha, 
in allusion to its supposed Ophidian characters. Professor Owen discussed 
in detail the various characters presented by the remains of these animals, 
and from his examination of these drew the following conclusions : — In the 
single occipital condyle and the composite structure of the mandible the 
Mosasaurians are Reptilian, as also in their proccelian vertebrae ; in the 
double occipital hypapophyses, the bifurcate and perforate parietal, the pre- 
sence of the “ columella,” the composite formation of the suspensory joint of 
the tympanic and in the type of the tympanic, the frame of the parial 
nostrils and the structure and attachment of the teeth, they are Lacertian. 
In one special dental modification they are Iguanian, in another Monitorial, 
and their special group characters consist in the more extensive fixation of 
the pterygoids and ossification of the roof of the mouth, the large pro- 
portion of the vertebral column devoid of zygapophyses, the confluence of 
the haemal arch with the centrum in certain of the caudal vertebrae, and the 
natatory character of the fore and hind limbs. These distinctive characters 
did not appear to the author to be sufficient for ordinal rank, and with 
Professor Gervais he regarded the Mosasauridae as a family of Lacertilia, 
equivalent to the Iguanodontidae and Megalosauridae in the order Dinosauria. 
The order Lacertilia among Reptiles, being equivalent to the order Carni- 
vora or Ferae among Mammals, the Mosasaurians would be the equivalent 
of the Seals in the latter. 
Hyanarctos in England. — In 1836 Messrs. Falconer and Cautley described 
a fossil from the Sewalik Tertiaries under the name of TIrsus sivalensis, regard- 
ing it as a true Bear. In 1837 Wagner recognized its distinctness from the 
true Ur si, and established a genus for it under the name of Agriotherium , 
whilst in 1841 De Blainville gave no less than two names to the genus, 
