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The Geological Age of Reptiles. By Gideon Mantell, Esq. 

 F. R. S. &c. &c. 



Among the numerous interesting facts which the researches of 

 modern geologists have brought to h'ght, there is none more ex- 

 traordinary and imposing than the discovery that there was a 

 period when the earth was peopled by oviparous quadrupeds of 

 a most appalling magnitude, and that reptiles were the Lords of 

 the Ci-eatiou, before the existence of the human race ' These 

 creatures of the ancient world, many of which, from their ex- 

 traordinary size and form, rival the fabled monsters of anti- 

 quity, existed in immense numbers, and in latitudes now too 

 cold for the habitation of modern oviparous quadrupeds. Their 

 remains occur in strata far more ancient than those which con- 

 tain the reliquiae of viviparous animals, and are found in ma- 

 rine as well as in fresh water deposites. Some of them, from 

 their organization, have been evidently fitted to live in the sea 

 only, while others were terrestrial, and many were inhabitants 

 of the lakes and rivers. The animal and vegetable remains with 

 which the fossil bones are associated, belong also to a very dif- 

 ferent order of things from that in which the modern oviparous 

 quadrupeds are placed ; and we are compelled to conclude that 

 the condition of the earth, at the period when it was peopled by 

 reptiles, must have been wholly different from its present state, 

 and that it probably was then unfit for the habitation of animals 

 of a more perfect organization. It is, moreover, interesting to 

 remark, that some of these ancient and lost races are, as it were, 

 the types of the existing orders and genera ; and that in the 

 pigmy Monitor and Iguana of modern times, we perceive strik- 

 ing resemblances to the colossal Megalosaurus and Ig'uanodon 

 of the ancient world. 



It is also worthy of observation, that, as in the present epoch 

 the herbivorous quadrupeds are those of the greatest magnitude, 

 so at the period when reptiles were the principal inhabitants of 

 our planet, the herbivorous were those of the most gigantic pro- 

 portions. The geological period when the existence of reptiles 

 commenced must, according to the present state of our know- 

 ledge, be placed immediately after the formation of the coal mea» 



