Petrifactions. MINERALOGY. Petrifactions. 
the mandibles appeared under it complete, with the teeth 
of the upper and under one. plainly locking or palling by 
each other. Thefe appeared to be of the dentes exerti or 
fang kind, as well as all the others in the narrow part of 
the mandible, and farther backwards they were not ob- 
ferved. From this ledge or flielf the mandible is fingle, 
and appears to be the upper one of the living animal; and, 
from the head not being exactly in the line of the body, 
that part has been inverted, or quite turned over, and the 
body itfelf, as appears from the tranfverfe procefles of the 
vertebra, lies on the right fide. There appears one row 
of teeth only on each fide of the mandible, and they are 
about three quarters of an inch alunder. The mandible, 
the cranium, and the vertebra, were attempted to be 
taken up whole; but the bones, being rendered extremely 
brittle, and the rock in which they were fixed being a 
brittle blackilh Hate, with joints or filfures running in 
every direction, would not hold together: the whole 
therefore fell in many pieces, the vertebra in the joints 
only, which makes them eafy to join together again, and be- 
fides lhows very plainly the tranfverfe and fpinal procefles, 
with the foramen in the latter for the fpinal marrow. 
This, with what has been before remarked, will fuflici- 
ently prove this to have been an animal of the quadruped, 
and probably, from the lhape of the cranium peculiar to 
filhes, of the amphibious, kind. At the fame time many 
pieces of the coftae,, or ribs, as broken and cruflied up 
againft the vertebra, were plainly vifible. The cavities of 
all the bones were filled with a fubftance, which appeared 
the fame as the rock itfelf; and the fubftance on each 
fide the vertebra, as they lay, was a mixture of fparry 
concreted matter with that of the rock itfelf, which is a 
blackilh Hate. The animal, when living, mull have been 
at leaft twelve or fourteen feet long. 
“ This Ikeleton lay about fix yards from the foot of the 
cliff, which is about fixty yards in perpendicular height; 
and mull have been covered by it probably not much 
more than a century ago. The cliff there is compofed of 
various ftrata, beginning from the top, of earth, clay, marl, 
ffones both hard and loft, of various thicknefi'es, and in¬ 
termixed with each other, till it comes down to the black 
Hate or alum rock; and about ten or twelve feet deep in 
this rock, this Ikeleton lay horizontally, and exa&ly as 
deiigned on the Plate. The probability that this cliff has 
formerly covered the animal, and extended much more 
into the fea, is not in the leaft doubted of by thofe that 
know it. The various ftrata, of which it is compofed, are 
daily mouldering and falling down ; and the bottom, 
being the llaty alum-rock, is alfo daily beaten, walhed, 
and worn away, and the upper parts undermined, whence 
many thoufand tuns often tumble down together. Many 
perfons now living, whofe teftimony can be no way 
doubted of, remember this very cliff extending in fome 
places twenty yards farther out than, it does at prelent. 
In fhort, thefe is fufficient evidence, that at the beginning 
it muft have extended near a mile farther down to the fea 
than it does at prefent; and fo much the fea has there 
gained of the land. 
« Thefe are the principal faCts and circumftances at¬ 
tending the fituation and dilcovery of this Ikeleton; 
which, from the condition it is in, and from the particular 
difpofition of the ftrata above the place where it is found, 
feem clearly to eftablifh the opinion, and almoft to a de- 
monftration, that the animal itfelf muft have been ante¬ 
diluvian, and that it could not have been buried or 
brought there any otherwife than by the force of the 
waters of the univerfal deluge. The different ftrata above 
this Ikeleton never could have been broken through at 
any time, in order to bury it, to fo great a depth as up¬ 
wards of one hundred and eighty feet; and confequently 
it .muft have been lodged there, if not before, at leaft at the 
time when thofe ftrata were formed.” 
This Ikeleton remains in the mufeum of the Royal 
Society : it is underftcod to be what in our fyftem is called 
Lacerta. Gangetica, or the Gangetic crocodile; by the 
Vol. XV. No. 1062. 
525 
French gavial. It is reprefented on Plate VIII. at fig. 1. 
A, B, C, the head and jaw, not in the fame line or range 
with the reft of the bones, g, h, a bone, with its pro- 
ceffes, in this part, is fuppofed to be fimilar to that which 
includes the brain in fifties. The part between the bone 
and outlines appeared to be a fmooth membrance; but 
was fo thin, that in taking up it broke. It is evident this 
is the upper part of the head inverted. B, C, the upper 
jaw entire, and in fome places covered with the inferior one 
for four or five inches together. Where this happens, the 
vacuity is filled with matter like the rock in which it lay ; 
and there are large teeth in each jaw, at Inch diftances, 
and fo pofited, that thofe in one jaw fill up the vacui¬ 
ties in the other, and appear like one continued row, the 
mouth being lliut. Where there is only the upper jaw re¬ 
maining, there are no teeth ; but the fockets are vifible 
and deep, and at the fame diftances from each other as the 
teeth in the other part of the jaw. The tip or extremity 
of the bill was entire for four or five inches, having both 
jaws, with their teeth, and towards the point large fanp-s-. 
Part of the jaw and head were covered with the rock ; 
which was removed before they appeared as in the figure. 
A, D, F, G, cavities in the rock, about two inches deep, 
where the wanting vertebra are fuppofed to have lain, as 
they are exa&Iy fuited to have received them. D, F, ten 
vertebrae, from three to four half inches in diameter, and 
about three inches long, fome of them feparated in taking 
up. They were about two inches in the rock. At E^, 
fomething like bone was obferved to llretch from the ver¬ 
tebra, and the workmen began to cut at,what was thought 
a proper diitance ; but found they cut through a bone; 
and with the vertebra brought tip three or four inches of 
the os femoris, with the ball, covered with the periofteum; 
but the animal had been fo cruflied hereabouts, that little 
of the focket or os innominata could be made out. Se¬ 
veral of the ribs came up with the vertebras : they were 
broken, and laid parallel to the vertebra;; but not quite 
clofe, there being fome of the rock between them. G, H, 
twelve vertebra remaining in the rock, with which they 
are almoft covered, efpecially towards the extremity, a, a,a s 
ammonitae, or lhake-ilones, which were lying about im¬ 
bedded in the fame ftratum. 
4. Amphibiolithus falamandra ; ikeleton of a falaman- 
der. Upwards of a century ago, there was dilcovered, in 
the quarries of Oeningen, near the Lake of Conltance, a 
petrified Ikeleton, which Scheuchzer, a naturalift of Zu¬ 
rich, took for the Ikeleton of a man, and which he had 
engraved by the title of A Man eoiemporary with the De¬ 
luge. Later naturalifts conjectured that it might have 
belonged to a filli. M. Cuvier, from the mere infpe&ion 
of the plate publifhed by Scheuchzer, conceived it to be 
an unknown and gigantic fpecies of falamander. Having 
taken a journey to Haarlem, where this celebrated foil'll 
is preferved, in the Teylerian Mufeum, and obtained per- 
miflion of Mr. Van Marum, the director, to cut away the 
ftone, for the purpofe of laying bare fuch parts of the ike¬ 
leton as were ftill enveloped in it, M. Cuvier difeovered 
paws, with their bones, toes, fmall ribs, teeth along two 
large jaws, in fliort, all thofe charadteriftic parts, which 
leave no room to doubt that this ikeleton actually be¬ 
longed to a Jalamander. He exhibited to the Royal In- 
ftitute of France, in 1814, a drawing of this foil'll thus com¬ 
pletely dilengaged ? which he deiigns to fend, with a de^ 
feription, to the academy of Haarlem. 
It will appear a remarkable circumftance, that the fpe- 
cimens of foflil amphibia that have been difeovered are all 
of that divifion called Reptilia, reptiles, and chiefly of 
the genera Teftudo and Lacerta ; while of the Serpentes, 
or ferpents, none have been found. Although the term 
Jhahe-Jiune is abundantly familiar to ordinary ears, it is 
merely a popular name for the cornu ammonis, which is 
a petrified fhell; but fome German dealers in foflils very 
dexterouily adjuil to the latter the fculptured head of a 
fnake, and pals the preparation with the credulous for a 
petrified ferpent. If, however, no well-attefted inftances 
6 S 0 f 
