382 PETRIFACTIONS AND THEIR TEACHINGS. CHAP. IV. 



This fossil is exposed so as to show the dorsal aspect of 

 the skeleton from the tip of the muzzle to near the extremity 

 of the tail. The cranium, the vertebral column and ribs, and 

 the bones of three paddles, are clearly displayed. 



This is the most gigantic of the known species of Ichthyo- 

 saurus, and attains a length of 30 feet j the orbit, in some 



"of the sea that rolled over its petrified remains, and threatened their 

 destruction. 



"In the month of July, 1832, Miss Anning obtained from the lias 

 limestone near the church at Lyme, part of the head of the Ichthyosaurus 

 Chiroligostinus," (the large specimen in Case C.). " Happening to 

 arrive at Lyme the same day, 1 was fortunate in availing myself of the 

 specimen. Accompanying Miss Anning the next morning to the beach, 

 she pointed out to me the place whence it was brought. Persuaded that 

 other portions of the skeleton must be there, I advised its extrication ; 

 this Miss Anning deemed impossible, and left me at liberty to make 

 the attempt. 



"If our reader knows Lyme, he will remember that four or five 

 hundred yards of the coast from the borough eastward, has an elevation 

 of from 60 to 100 feet above high water mark, and that a bed of diluvial 

 gravel conceals the blue marl of the lias from observation, except in 

 those places where the waters have ploughed a channel towards the sea. 

 At this spot there was a peninsular rock that had long defied the fury 

 of the destructive current that a south-wester invariably propelled against 

 it from the Cob. There it abutted against the angry waves, and resisted 

 the power of the surge. Beneath this rock was the Chiroligostinus. 



" But that venerable tiny promontory is no more. What the warring 

 elements failed in, curiosity achieves : the hand of man came upon it, 

 and it departed like a shadow. 



" The sun rose bright on the 26th day of July, 1832 ; and the morning 

 mists were hardly rolled away from the hill-side, ere many men busily 

 engage with spade and pick-axe to humble the doomed summit of this 

 cliff. Progress was also made on the following day, when people from 

 the adjacent country flocked to witness the execution of a purpose which 

 seemed to stagger their faith in our sanity. By next day's noon twenty 

 thousand loads of earth cast from the crown of the rock constitute a good 

 road-way to the beach from that part of it to which we had dug, and a 

 few minutes more suffice to lay bare the wonderful remains ! My eyes 

 the first which beheld them ! But, alas ! the bones with the marl in which 

 they lay, broke into small fragments, so that I almost despaired of their 

 reunion. At length all was secured; the skeleton and its matrix 

 weighed a ton. When my manual labours terminated, it counted about 

 six hundred pieces, some of which were so brittle that it was dangerous 

 to touch them. These a trusty Lucchese under my especial direction 

 fixed in sulphate of lime, of which three thousand pounds were used, in 

 a case that weighed half a ton I" Hawkins's "Memoirs on Ichthyo- 

 sauri" p. 13. 



