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The size of these animals also appears to agree with that of the most 
common species of Monitor ; such as, those which belong to the land, 
and to the river of Egypt ; that of Congou, described by Daudin ; those 
of the East Indies, See. They accord indeed so well, in almost every 
respect, that M. Cuvier, by comparison with different specimens and 
skeletons of these animals in the Museum, has been able to detect 
only one or two apparently specific distinctions. The one of these is, 
that the spinal processes of the dorsal vertebra; are much more raised 
than in the Monitors. The other is, that the leg appears to be longer 
in proportion to the thigh and foot, than is the case in the Monitors. 
In the neighbourhood of Altorf, in Bavaria, are quarries of 
indifferent grey marble, containing ammonites, &c. in which the 
impressions of large heads, with long jaws, armed with pointed teeth, 
have been repeatedly found. 
The specimens which have been there discovered, have not hitherto 
warranted the determining with what species of animal, or even hardly 
with what genus, they should be placed. In the opinion of Merck, 
Troisieme JLettre sur les Fossiles, p. 25, the one which he possessed, 
but which is now in the Museum of Darmstadt, may be considered as 
a Gavial. Another, in the Museum of Manheim, and which has been 
carefully figured and described by Collini, Act. Ac. Theod. Palat. v. 
PI. hi. Fig. 1 and 2, is thought, by this author, to have belonged either 
to a saw or a sword-fish, or to some unknown sea animal. The fore 
part of another was found by M. Bauder, Burgomaster of Altorf ; and 
this one has been merely described as part of the head of a crocodile. 
M. Faujas, who has published figures of the two first of these 
fossils, agrees positively with Merck in the opinion of their being the 
heads of the Gavial. This opinion is, however, opposed by M. Cuvier, 
who has discovered some important points in which they differ. The 
length of the head at Manheim is to its width as 38 to 11, whilst, in 
the larger Gavial, the length of its head is to its width as 25 to 9- 
The general figure of the head also differs from that of the larger 
