WEALDEN DINOSAURS. 



IGUANODON. 



SUPPLEMENT (No. III). 



Bones of the Forearm and Paio (' Dinosauria,' Plates 46, 47, 48.) 



The additional elements towards a reconstruction of the Iguanodon, which form the 

 subject of the present supplementary monograph, have been contributed by Samuel 

 Husbands Becklks, Esq., F.R.S., F.G.S., and their acquisition is due to his persevering 

 labour, liberal indifference to expense, and intelligence directing the quest, resulting in 

 the successful exhumation of the parts in question. They were associated with the greater 

 part of the skeleton, of which, besides the subjects of the present Monograph, Mr. Beckles 

 secured a dentary element of the mandible, fifty vertebrae, a sternum, scapula, and 

 coracoid, one humerus and fragments of the other, one femur, one tibia and parts of the 

 other, a tarsal bone, the three metatarsals, and phalanges of one hind foot, and some bones 

 of the other hind foot. 



Mr. Beckles was led to this excavation by a slight indication of l)one in a Wealden 

 clay (Hastings Series), about two miles to the west of St. Leonard's-on-Sea, Sussex. The 

 area worked up was 200 feet square, or 10 feet by 20 feet, and 4 feet deep. The bed was 

 below high water, and could only be wrought at during one tide in the day. Neverthe- 

 less the work of exposure was conducted with such energy that it was completed in a 

 week. " The bones were imperfectly mineralized, and could only be secured by plaster 

 of Paris, of which I used about thirty bags, each bag containing seven pounds. As a rule 

 I applied the plaster with my own hands ; but as the weather was severe, the wind being 

 high and cold, with occasional sleet and snow, I was compelled to leave the manipulation 

 of more than one bone to my navvies, and consequently one femur was destroyed, one jaw, 

 one humerus, and one tibia, nearly destroyed. Had I not made a digging expressly for 

 these bones, the interesting specimens you have in hand could never have been 

 obtained."^ 



1 Extract from a letter by Mr. Beckles to the author, of the 25th September, 1871. 



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