304 Ancient Geological Changes in England. 



ing the question proposed by Cuvier, after treating of die won- 

 ders which his own researclies in comparative anatomy had 

 brought to Hght. ' At what period was it, and under what 

 circumstances, that turtles and gigantic crocodiles lived in our 

 latitudes, and were shaded by forests of palms and arborescent 

 ferns * ?" -We cannot, indeed, reply to this question by refer- 

 ence to any measure of time connected with the history of 

 man, nor tell how many years or ages may have passed silent 

 and uncounted, during the wide interval by which the present 

 time is separated from that remote period ; but we can state, 

 almost with certainty, some of the principal events in the series 

 of geological occurrences which marked their progress, and spe- 

 cify at least one epoch during which the wonders which Cu- 

 vier refers to may have co-existed. If we are not deceived, our 

 readers will themselves be now enabled to anticipate the reply 

 of the geologist, and to pronounce that, along with the turtles 

 and the crocodiles, were the iguanodon, the megalosaurus, the 

 plesiosaurus, and other enormous reptiles of the lizard tribe, 

 and all the other strange and curious animals and plants whose 

 remains are found within the strata of the Wealden. The pe- 

 riod of their existence was unquestionably prior to the deposi- 

 tion of the greensands and the chalk, and they must have 

 lived and d'ed during the interval that followed the submersion 

 of the land which bore upon its surface the Cy cases, and the 

 trees of Portland, when the Ganges and the Niger of former 

 continents sent down their waters to the seas which then exist- 

 ed, when the Cyprises, the Cyclases, Unios, and Paludinas, of 

 species now unknown, lived in the rivers; and oysters, also of 

 species which exist no longer, inhabited the shallows at their 

 junction with the sea. 



There is proof, therefore, in what has been stated even in 

 this little volume, from an examination of the vicinity of Hast- 

 ings, of most extraordinary revolutions in the state of the 

 earth's surface, of alterations in its form, its climate, in the 

 structure and appearance of the animals and plants by which 

 it has been inhabited. If we had pursued these inquires, and 

 traced the history of other formations, we should have had be- 

 fore us evidence of changes not less striking in the former sur- 

 faces of the globe, at periods both antecedent and subsequent 

 * Cuvier, quoted by Mantell's Sussex, p. 57. 



