DR. BUCKLAND’S ADDRESS. 19 
living in their age, would have swallowed us up in less time 
than he had taken to tell this story. He had valued one 
eollection of these monsters which formerly belonged to Mr. 
Hawkins, and is now in the British museum, at £2000. 
They were so perfect that they could be dissected almost as 
an anatomist would dissect a dead dog; the skin, the scarf 
skin, and even what they had eaten for their dinners, was 
discoverable. After referring to the Plesiosaurus discovered 
by Mr. Conybeare, Dr. Buckland stated that on Tuesday 
last, at Birmingham, there was laid upon the table, a thigh- 
bone larger than that of any elephant that was ever seen; 
it had no marrow, it was as solid as a gate-post; it hada 
fibrous structure which exists not in any whales ; and par- 
tieular perforations for blood-vessels, which exist now only 
in the family of frogs, and toads, and salamanders. It was 
the thigh-bone of a colossal salamander (The chirotherium), 
and was found at Aust Passage, near Bristol, not 35 miles 
from Taunton. 
Turning to the architecture of the county, he spoke of 
Wells Cathedral, built of stone from Doulting near Shepton 
Mallet, of a subdivision of the inferior oolite formation, of 
a very enduring character. He wished he could say as much 
for the beautiful Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Taunton, 
which was built of Keuper sand-stone, and which had 
much decayed. The ashlers were of Ham-hill stone, 
which was also decaying; the quality of the stone being in- 
ferior to some which had been obtained at Ham-hill in times 
previous to the building of Taunton Church. At Ilminster, 
Yeovil, and Crewkerne, houses were built of a yellow sandy 
stone of the lower oolite formation; so they were in the 
towns of Towcester and Northampton, where it bears the 
local name of gingerbread rock. The Bath stone was used 
abundantly in London; this was a gross mistake, they could 
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