r 



this period centres. Huge fish-like hzards from 20 to 30 feet 

 long, — Icthyosaurs, witli eyes 14 inches in diameter, and 

 Plesiusaurs, with long swan-like necks, — infested the shallower 

 gulfs and bays ; some swimming out in the open water and 

 feeding on the fishes and Auimonites, others hiding themselves 

 amongst the tangle and in the crevices ot the rocks, and darting 

 out at their passing prey, 



" Dragons of the prime 

 That tare each other in their slime-"' 



while Pterodactyls, — large, flying, bat-like lizards, wliich are 

 principally found in the higher Jurassic strata, — pursued their 

 victims in the air, and clung to the cliffs and rocks on shore. 

 A strange weird life indeed was that which once filled tlie plain 

 between Gainsborough and Lincoln, and, with other deposits 

 of the same period elsewhere, it has well been called " the great 

 dragon land." 



This wonderful development of Saurian life began in the 

 Triassic age, attained its greatest energy in the Lias, and finally 

 died out, as a dominating power,, in the Chalk. The greater 

 portion of it then passed, by the process of evolution, into birds ; 

 nearly every successive chain in the link having been now 

 discovered, as Professor Huxley remarked at the late meSting 

 of the iJntisii Association at Oxford. 



And here, after ascending the Lincoln Cliff, and passing 

 over the higher be Is of the Lias on our way, — so well described 

 by ]\lr. W. D. Carr, whose removal from Lincoln we all 

 deplore as a real loss to our Society, — we reach the Oolite 

 capping at the top, and stand on ground made famous by 

 many a stirring event in history. Here Caesar's Roman legions 

 came and colonized. Here Norman William reared his fortress 

 against the vain force of Hereward who lies, with his true 

 forsaken wife, somewhere in Crowland's pi'ecints amid the fens 



