﻿130 Notice of Dr. MantelVs Medals of Creation. 



the greatest number among birds ; while the Plesiosaurus has 

 from 20 to 40. 



Sixteen species of Plesiosauri and ten of Ichthyosauri have 

 been described by Prof. Owen in the British strata alone. The 

 Megalosaurns was about 30 feet long, probably terrestrial, and 

 certainly carnivorous. The Hykeosaurus was from 20 to 30 feet 

 long. The Iguanodon is now supposed not to have been more 

 than 30 feet in length — less than one half of the length hereto- 

 fore assigned to this animal ; the tail was probably short, instead 

 of being long like that of the Iguana, as had been supposed; 

 and it is chiefly by shortening the tail that the reduction in 

 length has been made. The colossal trunk admits of no dimi- 

 nution, and remains in all its gigantic proportions. The Mosa- 

 saurus is supposed to have been marine, and to have been about 

 25 feet long, with a tail serving him like an oar. 



A fossil land tortoise has been discovered in India whose bones 

 indicate a length of 12 to 14 feet, and a corresponding breadth. 

 Bones of serpents that must have been 20 feet long have been 

 discovered in the London clay, and the huge Batrachian or frog of 

 Prof. Owen is supposed to have been of the size of a bull, or even 

 of an elephant ; it has been hitherto called the Chirotherium 

 from the hand-like impressions made by its feet, and by Mr. 

 Owen, Labyrinthodon, from the convoluted internal structure of 

 the teeth. 



Fossil Birds have been found in considerable numbers in the 

 tertiary, especially of the Paris basin ; an albatross has been 

 found in the chalk ; and Dr. Mantell has discovered the bones 

 of a heron even below the chalk in some of the deposits of the 

 Wealden ; nor was it believed that birds had existed at an ear- 

 lier period. 



But it is now fully admitted that birds, some of them of stupen- 

 dous magnitude, once impressed the then soft and yielding mate- 

 rials of what is now the new red sandstone of the Connecticut 

 River valley ; the impressions made by their feet are exceedingly 

 numerous — often sharp and well defined, and sometimes several 

 consecutive tracks of the same bird occur, and are crossed occa- 

 sionally by the tracks of other birds; among the very considerable 

 number of species, some were small like the snipes and little wa- 

 ders of our beaches; others strode with a reach surpassing the 

 power of a large man to equal the length of step, leaving cavities 



