Re: paleonet Translation of Goldfuss 1845

["ak" <ak@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: ak <ak@go.com.jo>
To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk <paleonet@nhm.ac.uk>; vertpaleo list
<vrtpaleo@usc.edu>; dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Date: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 10:57 Õ
Subject: Re: paleonet Translation of Goldfuss 1845


>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Mike Everhart <mike@oceansofkansas.com>
>To: vertpaleo list <vrtpaleo@usc.edu>; paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
><paleonet@nhm.ac.uk>; dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
>Date: Monday, December 31, 2001 03:29 Õ
>Subject: paleonet Translation of Goldfuss 1845
>
>
>All,
>I've just completed a webpage with the English translation of:
>
>Goldfuss, A., 1845. Der schèdelbau des Mosasaurus, durch beschreibung
>einer neuen art dieser gattung erlèutert, Nova Acta Academa Ceasar
>Leopoldino-Carolinae Germanicae Natura Curiosorum 21:1-28
>
>(The skull structure of the Mosasaurus, explained by means of a
>description of a new species of this genus).
>
>The work was translated by Dr. Robert Firestone (ret.), University of
>Colorado in Boulder, CO (Dept. of Germanic and Slavic Languages) and is
>on the net at:
>< http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Goldfuss2.html >
>
>In this often overlooked paper, Dr. August Goldfuss describes the first
>known articulated skull of a mosasaur. The specimen is also the first
>nearly complete mosasaur to be described from North America.
>
>The work done by Goldfuss (1845) was significant for the fact that it
>was the first time that an articulated, undistorted mosasaur skull had
>ever been shown. The original Dutch skull (Mosasaurus hoffmanni),
>figured by Cuvier, was mostly disarticulated. The skull from what is now
>South Dakota provide the first idea of what the head of a mosasaur
>actually looked like.
>
>Baur (1892) said that, "... if this important paper had been studied
>more carefully by subsequent writers [i. e., Cope and Marsh],
>much confusion could have been spared.  Williston (1895) elaborated
>further on the subject when he said, "As Baur has said, had later
>authorities studied this paper more attentively they would not have
>claimed as new a number of discoveries made and published long before,
>among which may be mentioned the position of the quadrate bone, the
>presence of the quadrato-parietal and malar arches, and the sclerotic
>plates." (Here Williston refers to Marsh's (1872) claim that he had
>discovered that mosasaurs were covered with dermal plates.  These were
>soon shown to be pieces of the bony sclerotic ring around the mosasaur
>eye).
>
>At any rate, while it is still a little rough in spots, it does make an
>interesting read.  The companion Goldfuss page is located here:
>< http://www.oceansofkansas.com/Goldfuss.html >
>
>Regards, and best wishes for a Happy New Year!
>
>Mike Everhart
>Adjunct Curator of Paleontology
>Sternberg Museum of Natural History
>Fort Hays State University, Hays, KS
>
>
>
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>