28 RELICS FROM THE WRECK 



ture of the living crocodile and moniter, while the Steneo- 

 saurus and the Teleosaurus, approached in the structure of 

 their heads and dental system, to the long-snouted Gavial, 

 the crocodile of the Ganges, while the Hylasosaurus, com- 

 hined in its osteology the structure of the crocodile with 

 that of lizards armed with dorsal spinal ridges. These, 

 and all others yet discovered in rocks ranging from the 

 older deposits of the new red sandstone to the terminating 

 of the chalk formation, are all essentially distinct from 

 species now in existence, and form in our museums most 

 tangible evidences of the very different conditions of these 

 parts o the earth at the time when they crawled upon the 

 land, or swam in the water, or winged their flight through 

 the air. A brief notice of these tenants of the ancient 

 world is all our limits will afford. 



Ichthyosaurus* (Fig. 1.) Ten species of this genus have 

 been found in the oolite and lias formation, varying con- 

 siderably in size, the largest measuring thirty feet in length. 

 " In its general outline," says Dr. Buckland, " the ichthyo- 

 saurus must have most nearly resembled the modern por- 

 poise and grampus. The animal was furnished with four 

 paddles, the front ones attached to a sternal arch of great 

 strength, and in a manner admirably adapted to the habits 

 of a creature requiring rapid motion through the ocean. 

 A similar construction of the sternum (breastbone) is only 

 met with among existing animals in that of the ornithor- 

 hynchus, or duck-billed water mole of New South Wales. 

 The snout resembled that of the porpoise j the teeth were 

 numerous, sharp and conical like those of a crocodile; 



* The remains of these animals are found through the oolite, and in 

 the lower beds of the chalk formations, but the lias is especially their 

 sepulchre. They occur in great abundance in England, at Barrow-on- 

 Soar, in Leicestershire, in the valley of the Avon, between BatH and Bris- 

 tol, aftd on the coast of Dorsetshire, where the cliffs appear to b inx- 

 haustible quarries of them. Milner. 



