54 RELICS FROM THE WRECK 



earth now unsextonizing a petrified bachelor's button 

 now a stone torn-tit now a marble gooseberry -bush 

 now one of St. Cuthbert's beads* now a couple of Kent- 

 ish cherries, all stone, turned into Scotch pebbles now a 

 fossil red herring now one of St. Patrick's petrified frogs. 

 But these are geological bagatelles ! We want the organic 

 remains of one of Og's bulls, or Gog's hogs that's the 

 Mastodon or Magog's pet lizard, that's the Iguanodon 

 or Polyphemu's elephant, that's the Magatherium. So in 

 they go again, with crash like Thor's Scandinavian ham- 

 mer, and a touch of the earthquake, and lo ! another and a 

 greater Bony-part to exhume ! Huzza ! shouts the field- 

 sparrer. Hold on, cries one, let go, shouts another there 

 he comes, says a third no, he don't, says a fourth. Where's 

 his nose ? 



What fatiguing work it is only to look at him, he's so 

 prodigious ! There, there now, easy ! Just hoist a bit 

 a little, a little more. Pray, pray, pray take care of his 

 lumbar processes, they're very friable Never you fear, zur 

 if he be friable I'll ate 'em.. 



Bravo ! there's his cranium Is that brain, I wonder, or 

 mud? no, 'tis ! Now for the cervical vertebraa. Stop 

 somebody hold his jaw. That's your sort! there's his 

 scapula. Now, then, dig, boys, dig, dig into his ribs. Work 

 away, lads you shall have oceans of strong beer, and 

 mountains of bread and cheese, when you've got him out. 

 We can't be above a hundred yards from his tail ! Huzza ! 

 there's his ! ! I wish I could shout from here to Lon- 



* They cormnonly occur singly in the northern counties, passing under 

 the denominations of " wheel-stones," and " St. Cuthbert's beads," from 

 having been strung as beads, and formerly used as rosaries. Hence the 

 lines in Marmion : 



" On a rock by Lindisfern 

 St Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame 

 The sea-born beads that bear his name." 



