Mount Saint Peter
Around 1765 the skull of a "Mosasaurus" was discovered here in a limestone quarry, one of the first recognised reptile fossils, which was later acquired by the Teylers Museum in Haarlem. A more famous "Mosasaurus" fossil was found between 1770 and 1774 but was confiscated by the French in 1794 and is now in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. Later dinosaur remains were discovered here as well, belonging to "Betasuchus" and "Orthomerus", as well as turtles and fossils of smaller creatures of the sea.
Mosasaurus
In 1798 Faujas de Saint-Fond published his "Histoire naturelle de la montagne de Saint-Pierre de Maestricht [Tome 1]", which also contained an account of the circumstances of the find. According to him, Dr. Hoffmann paid the quarrymen to inform him of any fossil finds. When the skull was found in 1770 Hoffmann was notified by the quarrymen and he is said to have led the excavation from then on. Afterwards, Godding would have claimed his rights as landowner and forced Hoffmann to relinquish his ownership through a lawsuit, won by influencing the court. De Saint-Fond, after all, in 1795, saved the specimen for science, promising a considerable indemnity to Godding to compensate for his loss. However, as Dutch historian Peggy Rompen has illustrated, very little of this famous story can be substantiated by other sources. Godding was the original owner, Hoffmann clearly never possessed the fossil, there is no trace of any lawsuit, Faujas de Saint-Fond probably never paid anything, and the entire account seems to have been fabricated by him to justify the dispossession by military force.