PETRIFIED SNAKES. 101 



said, indeed, that, just as there was an " age of reptiles," and, 

 preceding that, an " age of fish," when these two classes of animal 

 life reigned supreme over the rest of the creation, so, at a still 

 earlier period, there was an Age of Cephalopods, when the sea 

 was peopled with monstrous creatures of this class, and there 

 were either no animals of a higher grade in existence, or only 

 such as were feeble and powerless in comparison with these 

 rapacious monsters of the deep. The whole vast variety of early 

 Cephalopods belonged to the inferior or four-gilled division of the 

 group, and were thus closely related to the Pearly Nautilus of 

 the present day. It is not to be understood, however, that they 

 all resembled the Nautilus in form and figure. On the contrary, 

 there is the utmost diversity of form amongst the shells, though 

 all of them consist of a similar succession of chambers, and 

 were once tenanted by animals agreeing no doubt in all 

 essential particulars with the existing Nautilus. The most 

 abundant of the ancient Cephalopods were those of the different 

 species of Ammonites, so called from the fancied resemblance of 

 their shells to the horns of Jupiter Ammon. In the neighbour- 

 hood of Whitby, the lias rocks abound with these shells, which, 

 varying in size from that of a sixpence to that of the fore-wheel of 

 a coach, are popularly known as " Snake stones," the supposition 

 being that they are veritable petrified snakes. The reader will 

 no doubt recall the passage in " Marmion," in which Sir Walter 

 Scott puts a legend to this effect into the mouths of the Whitby 

 nuns, who tell their " stranger sisters :" 



" How, of thousand snakes, each one 



Was changed into a coil of stone, 



When holy Hilda prayed ; 

 Themselves, within their holy bound, 

 Their stony folds had often found." 



It so happens, however, that the petrified snakes are always 

 found minus the head, a circumstance which Sir Walter Scott, 

 in the Notes to his poem, satisfactorily accounts for by stating 

 that, at the abbess's intercession, the snakes were " not only 

 petrified but beheaded." The dealers in such wonders not 

 being aware, apparently, of this part of the miracle, and anxious 

 of course to demonstrate the truth of the current story, always 

 contrive to have on hand a few choice specimens of " perfect " 

 snake stones, in which the head of the snake is either formed of 



