IIEPTILES. 279 



diameter, and six feet in height. The foot of the animal 

 when Hving must have equalled in size that of tlie largest 

 llhinoceros. The entire length of the Tortoise, from the most 

 careful admeasurement, was inferred to have been about 

 eighteen feet, and its height more than seven. 



These remains were collected during a period of eight or 

 nine years, along a range of eighty miles of hilly country. 

 From the circumstances under which they were met with, in 

 crushed fragments, contained in elevated strata which have 

 undergone considerable disturbance, no perfect "shell," nor 

 anything approaching to a complete skeleton, was found. In 

 1835, when the first of these fossil remains were discovered, 

 there was no record of any colossal reptiles of this order ; and 

 it became a question, " To what animal could these enormous 

 bones have belonged?" Vain, for a long time, was all 

 research and all conjecture ; the problem was still unsolved, 

 and the interest attached to its solution continued daily to 

 increase. At length a small Land Tortoise furnislied to the 

 investigators the data for its solution. One of its diminutive 

 leg bones resembled in form one of the immense fossils. And, 

 as in the " Castle of Otranto " the helmet which filled the 

 court-yard, the gigantic foot, the colossal hand, and the sword 

 which required a hundred men to carry it, were all associated 

 together; so, when the creature which had borne this pon- 

 derous fossil had been discovered, the mystery-- was revealed, 

 and no difficulty was felt in assigning to every other bone its 

 proper place.* 



The researches of geologists have shown that several species 

 of both Land and Freshwater Tortoises lived, in former times, 

 in these countries ; and the remains of the marine species dis- 

 covered have been so numerous as to prove that our own seas 

 were at one period more abundantly provided with Turtles, of 

 different kirids, " than the same extent of ocean in any of the 

 warmer parts of the earth at the present day."t 



Having presented the Tortoise to our readers under so many 



* The name bestowed on this fossil Tortoise V.as Colossocheli/s Atlas: the 

 fir? t term — literally, "Colossal Tortoise" — having reference to its size; the 

 second to an Indian tradition, of the world having been placed on the back 

 of an elephant, which was sustained on a huge tortoise ; the creature thus 

 performing the duty of Atlas, who, according to classic fable, supported the 

 world on his shoulders. 



t Professor Owen, in a paper read before the Geological Society, 1841 



