98 



ON THE LEVIATHAN AND BEHEMOTH. 



BY T. THOMPSON, ESQ. 



A Paper read before the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society. 

 ( Continued from page 61.) 



As to the Behemoth. — T will now give from the 40th chapter of the 

 Book of Job, the description of the behemoth : " Behold now behe- 

 moth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo, now, his 

 strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. 

 He moveth his tail like a cedar; the sinews of his stones are 

 wi-apped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his 

 bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God : he 

 that hath made him can make his sword 'to approach unto him. Surely 

 the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field 

 play. He lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reed, and 

 fens. The shady trees cover him with their shadow ; the willows of 

 the brook compass him about. Behold, he drinketh up a river, and 

 hasteth not : he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth. 

 He taketh it with his eyes : his nose pierceth through snares." 

 (Verses 15 to 24.) 



The opinion I have fonned as to the particular animal intended by 

 the Hebrew word " behemoth" is, that it was the now extinct saurian 

 animal known to geologists by the name of iguanodon, found in a 

 fossil state in nearly the same situations as the fossil megalosaurus. 



As I mean to pursue the same course, in giving my reasons for 

 this belief, as I did in explaining why I have thought the leviathan 

 to have been the now extinct megalosaurus, I shall extract a descrip- 

 tion of the iguanodon from authors who have written on the subject, 

 and then contrast that description with that of the behemoth mentioned 

 in the 40th chapter of Job. The following description of the 

 iguanodon, extracted from Griffith's translation of Cuvier's work. 

 Fossil Remains, may answer our purpose : — 



" The sandstone of Tilgate and the Wealden deposits contain a 

 quantity of organic remains of various kinds ; amongst others, teeth 



