Read Feb. 2, 1758.
ABOUT three years ago I sent you some vertebræ of an enormous size, which were found in the slate-stone pit at Stonesfield, near Woodstock, in this county.
Philos. Trans. Vol. L. Tab. XIX. p. [525].
J. Mynde sc.
I have lately been so lucky as to procure from the same place the thigh-bone of a large animal, which probably belonged to the same creature, or one of the same genus, with the vertebræ above-mentioned.
As the bone, and the stone, in which it is bedded, weigh no less than two hundred pounds, I have sent you a drawing of it (See Tab. [XIX.]); from which, and the following short description, you may, I hope, form some idea of this wonderful fossile.
The bone is 29 inches in length; its diameter, at the extremity of the two trochanters, is 8 inches; at the lower extremity the condyles form a surface of 6 inches. The lesser trochanter is so well expressed in the drawing, that you cannot mistake it; and both the extremities appear to be a little rubbed by the fluctuating water, in which I apprehend it lay some time before the great jumble obtained, which brought it to this place; and from whence I imagine it to have been part of a skeleton before the flood. For if it had been corroded by any menstruum in the earth, or during the great conflux of water before the draining of the earth, it must have suffered in other parts as well as at each end: but as the extremities only are injured, we can attribute such a partial effect to the motion of the water only, which caused it to rub and strike against the sand, &c.
The small trochanter was broken in lifting it out of the hamper, in which it was brought to me; but not unhappily; since all the cancelli were by that means discovered to be filled with a sparry matter, that fixed the stone of the stratum, in which it lay. The outward coat or cortex is smooth, and of a dusky brown colour, resembling that of the stone, in which it is bedded.
One half of the bone is buried in the stone; yet enough of it is exposed to shew, that it is the thigh-bone of an animal of greater bulk than the largest ox. I have compared it with the recent thigh-bone of an elephant; but could observe little or no resemblance between them. If I may be allowed to assume the liberty, in which fossilists are often indulged, and to hazard a vague conjecture of my own, I would say it may probably have belonged to the hippopotamus, to the rhinoceros, or some such large animal, of whose anatomy we have not yet a competent knowlege.