Notes on a Crocodilian Jaw from the Corallian Rocks of Weymouth

Abstract

C rocodilian remains from the Corallian Rocks are so rarely to be obtained, that neither in the British Museum nor in the collection of the Geological Survey in Jermyn Street are there to be found more than a few isolated teeth from this horizon. Such being the case, I was led to attach some little importance to the discovery of the remains of a Crocodilian (?) jaw in the beds of this age at Weymouth; and as the specimen possessed certain peculiarities, it seemed desirable that some notice of it should be placed upon record. I have therefore ventured to lay before the members of this Society the following description of the fossil. The general appearance of the specimen, which I believe to be a portion of a lower jaw, is shown in figure 1; it measures about 11 inches in length. Its present dilapidated condition is due partly to weathering before it was discovered, and partly to the friable nature of both the bone and the matrix, which added much to the difficulty of detaching it from the mass of rock in which it was imbedded. When first found, the upper or alveolar margins were imbedded in the matrix, and the lower parts had been so far denuded as to expose the alveolar cavities, and in some of the anterior ones parts of the teeth were still to be seen. A considerable part of the hinder end of the jaw is wanting. The right ramus has been broken across at c,