•t^S Notices respecting New Books. 



with an account of a few bones of birds which the Tilgate strata af- 

 ford. 



The work concludes with the subjoined interesting remarks. 



" We cannot leave this subject without offering a few general re- 

 marks on the probable condition of the country, through which the 

 waters flowed that deposited the strata of Tilgate Forest ; and on the 

 nature of its animal and vegetable productions. M^hether it were an 

 island or a continent, may not be determined ; but that it was diver- 

 sified by hill and valley, and enjoyed a climate of a higher temperature 

 than any part of modern Europe, is more than probable. Several kinds 

 of ferns appear to have constituted the immediate vegetable clothing 

 of the soil : the elegant Hyinenopterispsilotoides, which probably never 

 attained a greater height than three or four feet, and the beautiful 

 Pecopterls reticulata, of still lesser growth, being abundant every 

 where. It is easy to conceive what would be the appearance of the 

 valleys and plains covered with these plants, from that presented by 

 modern tracts, where the common ferns so generally prevail. But the 

 loftier vegetables were so entirely distinct from any that are now known 

 to exist in European countries, that we seek in vain for any thing at 

 all analogous without the tropics. The forests of Clatlnarice and En- 

 dogenitcE, (the plants of which, like some of the recent arborescent 

 ferns, probably attained a height of thirty or forty feet,) must have 

 borne a much greater resemblance to those of tropical regions, than 

 to any that now occur in temperate climates. That the soil was of a 

 sandy nature on the hills and less elevated parts of the country, and 

 argillaceous in the plains and m.arshes, may be inferred from the ve- 

 getable remains, and from the nature of the substances in which they 

 are enclosed. Sand and clay every where prevail in the Hastings 

 strata ; nor is it unworthy of remark, that the recent vegetables to 

 which the fossil plants bear the greatest analogy, affect soils of this 

 description. If we attempt to pourtray the animals of this ancient 

 country, our description will possess more of the character of a ro- 

 mance, than of a legitimate deduction from established facts. Turtles, 

 of various kinds, must have been seen on the banks of its rivers or 

 lakes, and groups of enormous crocodiles basking in the fens and 

 shallows. 



" The gigantic Megalosaurus, and yet more gigantic Iguanodon, to 

 whom the groves of palms and arborescent ferns would be mere beds 

 of reeds, must have been of such prodigious magnitude, that the ex- 

 isting animal creation presents us with no fit objects of comparison. 

 Imagine an animal of the lizard tribe, three or four times as large as 

 the largest crocodile, having jaws, with teeth equal in size to the in- 

 cisors of the rhinoceros, and crested with horns ; such a creature must 

 have been the Iguanodon ! Nor were the inhabitants of the waters 

 much less wonderful ; witness the Plesiosaurus, which only required 

 wings to be a flying dragon ; the fishes resembling Silttri, Balhtce, &:c." 



The plates to this work are well executed in lithography ; and we 

 think it so excellent a specimen of the results of local geological re- 

 search, that we hope, contrary to a remark in the preface, to see some 

 further publications by Mr. Man tell on the geology of his native county." 



LXXVI. Pro- 



