196 Miscellanies. 
that the animal perished by some sudden evolution of mineral matter, 
which encased the body before the putrefactive process had commen- 
ced, and enabled it to resist the pressure of many hundred feet of 
chalk deposited over it. Besides the collection of fossil fishes, there 
is also, we believe, a more complete collection of Fossil Zoophytes 
and Shells, from the chalk, than can be seen in any other museum ; 
but its chief glory consists in the remains of enormous reptiles, dis- 
covered by Mr. Mantell in the Wealds of Sussex, to which he has 
recently made many important additions, since the removal of the 
museum from Lewes. To Mr. Mantell we are entirely indebted for 
our knowledge of the Iguanodon, a terrestrial reptile, approaching 
closely in form to the Iguana of the West Indies, but from 70 to 100 
feet in length. One thigh bone is three feet eight inches in length, 
and about thirty four inches in circumference at the condyles: a 
group of four vertebre of the tail, each of which is nearly twenty- 
four inches in circumference, prove the gigantic size of the animal. 
Through the kindness of some of his scientific friends in Brighton, 
Mr. Mantell has obtained possession of the skeleton of this animal, 
found the last summer at Maidstone, which is now in his museum; 
and though several of the bones are mutilated or lost, it has enabled 
Mr. Mantell to make out the osteology of some parts of this extraor- 
dinary animal which were before obscure. ‘The toe-bones are, some 
of them very large, and closely resemble those of the hippopotamus: 
these Mr. Mantell believes to be metatarsal, belonging to the hind 
feet, while the bones of the fore feet, or fingers, are comparatively 
slender, like those of the recent Iguana ; a supposition rendered prob- 
able, when we reflect that the latter reptile climbed trees, and there- 
fore required prehensile feet ; but the monstrous Iguanodon would in 
vain have sought for a tree on which to suspend his colossal form, 
and would want a firm support for his enormous carease. The claw- 
bones which Mr. Mantell has recently discovered, tend to confirm 
this conjecture: they resemble in form those of the land-tortoise. 
From the size of the thigh-bone before mentioned, we may infer 
that the thigh itself, when clothed with muscles and integuments, 
and covered with scales, must have been as big as the body of a large 
ox. Though numerous teeth of the Iguanodon have been discover- 
ed, it is greatly to be regretted that no head or jawbone has yet been 
found ; but the recent discovery of so large a portion of the skeleton, 
in one mass, as that from Maidstone, has fully confirmed Mr. Man- 
tell’s inferences from the detached and broken bones found before in 
Tilgate Forest. 
