XXVI. Conjecture relative to the petrifactions found in St. Peter's Mountain, near Maestricht.

Abstract

The discovery of a great number of petrified bones about the year 1770, in the mountain of St. Peter at Maestricht, and particularly of large jaw-bones with their teeth, suggested to the late M. Hoffman, first Surgeon to the Military hospital at Maestricht, a worthy member of several learned Societies, and a great admirer of natural history, the idea that these maxillæ belonged to crocodiles. This notion was spread by himself and his literary correspondents through all Europe. He did me the favour to send me, not only the history of those petrifactions, but also several figures of the jaw-bones in question, and of other bones, which were all intirely new to me, except some fragments of the bones of turtles. I discovered, however, at the very first sight, the characteristical differences which distinguished these bones from those of crocodiles, of which I had at that time several in my collection.