UNGLK IN ENGLAND. 267 



Above these, for you no doubt have perceived 

 what I forgot to mention, that my uncle began at 

 his lowest drawer, in order to shew the lowest 

 strata first above these, he showed me a collec- 

 tion of the lias and oolite strata, both of them 

 impure limestones, but extremely rich in the 

 number and variety of organic remains. These 

 consist of ferns and flags, corals and zoophytes, 

 shells of all kinds, univalve, bivalve, and multi- 

 valve ; ammonites of all sizes, fishes of several 

 species, and turtles and other amphibia unlike 

 any of the species now known. To one of these 

 amphibia has been given the name ichthyosaurus, 

 which, my uncle says, means the fish-like lizard ; 

 it having the head of a crocodile and the back 

 bone of a shark ; he has only a small specimen, 

 which stands over the book-case, but he says 

 some have been found in the lias near Lyme, 

 in Dorsetshire, three or four feet in length. 

 And he told me that at Stonesfield, near Wood- 

 stock, in Oxfordshire, the fossil remains of ano- 

 ther extraordinary animal of the amphibious 

 tribes was discovered, which has been called the 

 monitor ; no complete skeleton of it has yet been 

 put together, but many of the detached parts 

 must have belonged to an animal forty feet long, 

 and twelve feet high ! 



The remainder of this numerous series consists 

 of different strata of sands and clays, and various 

 limestones, up to the chalk formation ; and they 



2 A 2 



