299 
The first collection of these fossils was made by an intelligent officer, 
M. Drouin, who commenced his researches about the year 1?66. 
This collection is at present in Teyler’s Museum. M. Hoffman, the 
surgeon of the fort, of whom I have already spoken, also made a col- 
lection of these specimens, which at his death was purchased by Dr. 
Peter Camper, who presented some of them, as has been already re- 
lated, to the British Museum. 
In 1770 , the workmen having discovered part of an enormous head 
of an animal imbedded in the solid stone, in one of the subterranean 
passages of the mountain, gave information to M. Hoffman, who, with 
the most zealous assiduity, laboured until he had disengaged this 
astonishing fossil from its matrix. But when this was done, the fruits 
of his labours were wrested from him by an ecclesiastic, who claimed 
it as being proprietor of the land over the spot on which it was found. 
Hoffman defended his right in a court of justice ; but the influence of 
the Chapter was employed against him, and he was doomed not only 
to the loss of this inestimable fossil, but to the payment of heavy law 
expenses. But in time, justice, M. Faujas says, though tardy, at last 
arrived — the troops of the French Republic secured this treasure, 
which was conveyed to the National Museum. 
This fossil is described by M. Faujas, in his work on the Mountain 
of St. Peter. In this work M. Faujas endeavours to show that this 
animal must have been a crocodile, in agreement with the opinion of 
Messrs. Drouin and Hoffman, and in opposition to that of Dr. Peter 
Camper, who believed it to have been a cetaceous animal. M. Adrian 
Camper, after the most careful investigation, has thought it must 
have been a reptile, allied, in some respects, to the family of Monitors, 
and in others to the Iguanas. 
Furnished by M. Loisel, Prefect of the Lower Meuse, with nu- 
merous other specimens, not only from the quarries under Fort St. 
Peter, but from several other hills, and particularly from the village 
of Seichem, in addition to those which had been secured by M. Faujas, 
