Proceedings. 117 



quite of a Jurassic type, or that of the epoch prior to the 

 Wealden ; but with the Gault the fl.ora is that characteristic 

 of the Tertiary Epoch, which follows the Chalk ; in fact it is 

 the type of the present day, for we are living in the Tertiary, 

 In the chalk of Aix-la-Chapelle and the Pyrenees, leaves of 

 the oak, beech, fig and elm, and the fruit and leaves of the 

 walnut tree have been found, and also relics of the Proteacea, 

 now represented in Australia and at the Cape. It is only 

 natural to suppose that the types of terrestrial life would be 

 less permanent than marine life, for the oceans are always 

 connected with one another ; while great stretches of land 

 may become isolated, or, as I have endeavoured to show, may 

 disappear altogether beneath the sea. 



With the Chalk the reign of Reptiles came to an end. 

 These had been the dominant form of the Mesozoic or Epoch 

 of the Middle phase of life to which our Chalk belongs, and 

 we see the last representatives of a group of truculent 

 marine reptiles in the Mosasaurus, whose skull in a rather 

 fragmentary state I have represented. I have brought a 

 vertebral joint of this reptile, which was found in the Upper 

 Greensand of Betchworth. 



Another reptile belonging to a different class also died 

 out, the Pterodactyl. A phrenologist is hardly needed to 

 read its disposition from its skull ; and when we take into 

 account that it could walk, swim, and fly by means of a bat- 

 like patagium extended by its enormously-developed little 

 finger, and that one has been found in the chalk of Maidstone 

 which measured sixteen feet from tip to tip of its wings, I 

 think we may congratulate ourselves that we are so far 

 removed from it in time. 



Now a word with regard to the reptile-like bird. This has 

 been named the Hesperornis, and its remains were found in 

 the Cretaceous as represented in America. It was an aquatic 

 bird, well fitted for diving. Its wings were merely rudiments. 

 It displays some points of structure characteristic of the 

 Emeu. Its head was long and narrow, and the shape of its 

 brain decidedly reptilian. But the most astonishing feature 

 was its teeth, true teeth, not mere notches in the homy 



