1893.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 71 



monster," the word used in the old English version being apparently 

 based upon the Latin, that in the new upon the Greek translations 

 of the Hebrew Bible. The word tninm is derived, according to 

 some Hebrew grammarians from tne, to shriek or wail, and denotes 

 in the form of a noun some kind of serpent, on account of the hiss- 

 ing noise made by such animals. By others, however, the root is 

 supposed to be tnn, to extend, the noun derived from the latter 

 indicating an elongated kind of reptile, such as a great serpent or 

 sea monster of some kind. That the word tninm, however derived, 

 refers to some kind of reptile is shown by it being rendered in the 

 148th Psalm, 7 verse, in the Septuagint, dpaxov-sg, in the Vulgate 

 dracones, and in the English versions " dragons." While the word 

 tninm might be translated " sea monsters," since reptiles like the 

 Dinosauria, etc., are regarded as sea dragons in a popular sense, it is 

 difficult to justify the rendering of the word by " whales." Further, 

 if the latter interpretation of the word be accepted the difficulty 

 will then present itself of reconciling the statement of Genesis that 

 whales were created before mammals with the evidence of the 

 rocks that goes far to prove that the whales have descended from 

 carnivorous mammals like the seals, the Zeuglodon, an extinct 

 cetacean form combining in many respects the characters of both these 

 orders. On the supposition, however, that by tninm is meant rep- 

 tiles of some kind thex-e is no difficulty in reconciling the statements 

 in Genesis with the facts of paleontology,, the reptiles (schrtz) 

 appearing in Permian and Triassic times, such as Proterosaurus, 

 Nothosaurus, Rhynchosaurus, etc., being followed by very different 

 kinds of reptiles (tninm) in Jurassic and Cretaceous eras. Marine 

 monsters like the Plesiosaurus, Ichthyosaurus, Elasmosaurus, 

 Edestosaurus and land monsters of which Hadrosaurus, Lselaps, 

 Iguanodon and Megalosaurus are examples. The Hebrew 

 word rmsht being derived from the stem word rmsh, to move, is 

 rendered both in the old and in the revised versions by " moveth," 

 and in the Vulgate by " motabilem." As rmsh secondarily, how- 

 ever, means to creep or to crawl it was translated by the Seventy 

 kpizsribv. All aquatic animals that moveth, creepeth or crawleth are 

 not, however, necessarily reptiles since there are mammals that 

 " moveth " in the water and " creepeth " or " crawleth " out of it. 

 Indeed, in the reference made in Gen., c. 7 : v. 21, to the death of 

 all flesh "that moveth upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle 

 and of beast," and in Psalm 104, v. 21, " wherein all of the beasts 



