Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 2.djvu/114

Rh In Captain Krusenstern's Memoir on the Lands of the Icy Sea, it is related that 250 versts of the coast of a northern land was very lately explored, which has been called New Siberia; and at the easternmost part of this land the coast took a direction to the north-west, which appeared to render it not probable that it joined the Tschuktzki land: but nevertheless, the coast, in Captain Burney's opinion, may turn to the east ; and the Russian discoverer Hederstroom considers that this is the case, and that New Siberia is a prolongation of America. The Tschuktzki people, says the author, would not explore further north than afforded a prospect of reward for their pains, which has led them to some of the islands of the Icy Sea, though there is no evidence of their having yet reached New Siberia. On the whole, Captain Burney is of opinion that Asia and America are part of one and the same continent.

In an engraving annexed to Sir Everard Home's first paper upon the above subject, a portion of bone is shown lying upon the scapula, which he considered as a portion of a rib accidentally brought there; but which he now finds to be nearly in its original situation, and is found to resemble nearly the clavicular bone in birds, as far as regards relative position.

The bones of the sternum were first pointed out to the author by Mr. Buckland; and their discovery destroys the analogy between this fossil animal and cartilaginous fishes. On comparing the general form of the sternum with that of the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus, a general agreement was discovered between them: they differ in the fossil skeleton having a clavicular bone, which is wanting in the other, and in the Ornithorhynchus having a long process from the scapula, which the fossil bone wants.

The fossil animal is ascertained to have lived in water, by the form of its vertebrae; and from the shape of the chest, it must have breathed air; in these respects resembling the Ornithorhynchus: but the mode of progressive motion differs: that of the one being the same as in fishes, that of the other the same as in the whale tribe.

Another bone is described in this paper, probably belonging to the same animal, and which the author regards as the first bone of the pectoral fin; which, however, cannot be absolutely determined till the bones of the pelvis are found.

To find any analogy, says the author, between the bones of animals now alive and those of races long extinct, is matter of no small curiosity; but to have discovered an analogy between the peculiarities belonging to the animals of New Holland, by which they are so remarkably distinguished from all others that now inhabit our globe,