CHAPTER V. 



THE DRAGONS OF OLD TIME — DINOSAURS, 



"What we know is but little; what we do not know is immense." — La 

 Place. 



Was there ever an age of dragons ? Tradition says there was ; 

 but there is every reason to believe that the fierce and blood- 

 thirsty creatures, of which such a variety present themselves, are 

 but creations of the imagination, — useful in their way, no doubt, 

 as pointing a moral or adorning a tale, but, nevertheless, 

 wholly without foundation in fact. The dragon figures in the 

 earliest traditions of the human race, and crops up again in full 

 force in European mediaeval or even late romance. 



In ancient Egyptian mythology, Horus, the son of Isis, slays 

 the evil dragon. In Greece, the infant Hercules, while yet in his 

 cradle, strangles deadly snakes; and Perseus, after engaging in 

 fierce stniggle with the sea-monster, slays it, and rescues Andro- 

 meda from a cruel death. In England, we have the heroic legend 

 of St. George and the Dragon depicted on our sovereigns. But it 

 is easy to see a common purpose running through these legends. 

 They are considered by many to be solar myths, and have a moral 

 purpose. The dragons or snakes are emblems of darkness and 

 evil ; the heroes emblems of light, and so of good. The triumph 

 of good over evil is the theme they were intended to illustrate. 

 The dragons, then, are clearly products of the imagination, based, 

 no doubt, on the huge and uncouth reptiles of the present human 

 era, such as crocodiles, pythons, and such creatures. 



