30 RELICS FROM THE WRECK 



sand years ago, all these intervals seem annihilated, time 

 altogether disappears, and we are brought into the imme- 

 diate contact with events of immeasurably distant periods 

 as with the affairs of yesterday.' 7 



Plesiosaurus (Fig. 2). ThisEnaliosaurian or fish-lizard, 

 resembled the Ichthyosaurus in its being furnished with 

 four paddles, in the concave structure of its vertrebse, and 

 in possessing the head of a lizard, and the teeth of a croco- 

 dile ; but its neck was enormously long, while its trunk and 

 tail possessed the proportions of an ordinary quadruped. 

 The head was comparatively small, the teeth conical, very 

 slender, and curved inwards. Professor Owen enumerates 

 not less than sixteen' species, some of which are thirty feet 

 in length. In treating of this, perhaps the most hetrocli tic 

 of all animals, living or extinct, Conybeare observes: 

 " That it was aquatic is evident, from the form of its pad- 

 dles that it was marine, is almost equally so, from the re- 

 mains with which it is universally associated that it may 

 have occasionully visited the shore, the resemblance of its 

 extremities to those of the turtle, may lead us to conjecture ; 



Fig. 2. 



Plesiosaurus. 



its motions, however, must have been very awkward on land ; 

 its long neck- must have impeded its progress through the 

 water, presenting a striking contrast to the organization 

 which so admirably fits the Ichthyosaurus to cut through 

 the waves. May it not, therefore, be concluded, (since, in 

 addition to these circumstances, its respiration must have 

 required frequent access of air,) that it swam upon, or near 

 the surface, arching its long neck like the swan, and occa- 

 sionally darting it down at the fish which happened to float 



