For some years the few specimens discovered by Drouin and Hofmann were all that were known of the mosasaurs. A few others of related forms were discovered in England, and some were reported from New Jersey by early explorers, but there was little published about the mosasaurs till 1843, when Dr. August Goldfuss, a noted German paleontologist, described and beautifully figured an excellent specimen from the United States. This specimen also had a rather eventful history. It was discovered early in the fourth decade by Major O’Fallen, an Indian agent, near the Great Bend of the Missouri River, whence it was transported by him to St. Louis and placed in his garden as a curiosity. It happened that Prince Maximilian of Wied, the famous naturalist, in his travels through the United States, saw the specimen and secured it, taking it to Germany on his return. He presented it to the Museum of Haarlem where Goldfuss saw and described it. Rather oddly, this specimen was of a species closely allied to the original one of Maestricht, a species which has since only rarely been found. It was called _Mosasaurus maximiliani_ by Goldfuss, though some time previously, it has since been found, some fragments of the same species were described by Harlan, an American author, under the name _Ichthyosaurus missouriensis_. Goldfuss’ paper was strangely overlooked by subsequent writers, and it was not till the discovery of numerous remains of mosasaurs by Leidy, Cope, and Marsh in the chalk of western Kansas, nearly thirty years later, that much was added to the world’s knowledge of these strange reptiles. [Illustration: FIG. 69.—Skeleton of _Plalecarpus_ as mounted in the Paleontological Exhibit. Walker Geological Museum, University of Chicago.]