44 
APPENDIX. 
MESOTERAS. Cope. 
Genus novum 
Character. Orbital process of frontal narrower, exceedingly thick and 
massive at the extremity. Posterior lumbars and anterior candals with 
short antero-posterior diameter. Premaxillary and maxillary bones de- 
pressed, the latter thin, horizontal, narrow. Otic bulla depressed. 
This genns is allied to Balaena in the form of its vertebra, and to some 
extent in that of its frontal bone. The flatness of the maxillary and pre- 
maxillary is rather that of Balaenoptera. The extraordinary mass of the 
superciliary portion of the frontal is peculiar to the species which forms 
the type of the genus, so far as known. 
Mesoteras kerrianus. Cope. 
Species nova. 
This species w T as discovered by Prof. W. C. Kerr, Director of the 
Geological Survey of Horth Carolina, in a bed of miocene marl, at a 
point where it was cut by Quanky creek, a tributary of the Roanoke liver, 
in Halifax county, K . C. A portion of the cranium had been noticed for 
some years projecting from the steep bank or wall of the small canon of 
the creek at about thirty feet below the surface of the ground. Prof. 
Kerr, with the aid of a number of men, dug from its bed and elevated to 
the surface of the ground a large fragment of the cranium, including the 
greater part of the left maxillary and premaxillary bones, with a large 
part of the frontal. A large fragment of the right ramus of the man- 
dible ; an otic bulla, several lumbar and caudal vertebra, with several 
broken ribs, were also obtained. 
These remains indicate not only a species, but a genus new to science, 
and the largest extinct Balaenoid yet discovered. 
The principal mass includes from the posterior margin of the trans- 
verse process of the frontal, to within four or five feet of the end of the 
muzzle. The mass measures eleven feet six inches in length. The 
fragment of the ramus mandibuli measures thirteen feet ; five feet are 
probably lost distally, and there is no trace of coronoid process at the point 
where it is broken off proximally. The length of the restored cranium 
■would not be less than eighteen feet. This gives for the total length, esti- 
mating on the basis of Megaptera, seventy-five to eighty feet. 
The orbital process is nearly in line witli the maxillary, probably in con- 
