1^35.] 



F A R .AI E R S ' REGISTER 



13 



in publisliing a great work on Fossil Fishes, 

 Aviiich is to be embellished with two hundred and 

 fil'iy plates in folio. He lias already examined 

 more than ten thousand specimens; and one year 

 aifo, had ascertained eight hundred extinct spe- 

 cies. No doubt many others will be found; and 

 our own country may yet furnish its quota. We 

 remember taking the impression of a fish about 

 four incivs in length from the slate* rock of this 

 district, a few years ago; but it soon crumbled in- 

 to pieces. Harder beds of the same rock, howev- 

 er, frequently occur. From the chalk near Lewes 

 in England, some specimens of great beauty 

 have been taken, and one with its "mouth open 

 and entire. The air bladder appears unbroken in 

 many of the specimens, and proves that the bo- 

 dies were completely incased in the chalk before 

 the putrefactive process had commenced. In 

 some of these fishes, the fins, gills, and teeth, 

 are preserved, as' well as the air-bladder and 

 tonrrue; the scales are also very distinct. 



Of those who have been concerned in such re- 

 searches, no one has been more distinguished for 

 skill and success than Gideon Mantell of Sussex 

 in Enirland. The fjssils we have last noticed 

 were collected and preserved in his museum. To 

 him the scientific world is also indebted for the 

 discovery of the Igiianodonj a reptile which Cu- 

 vier considered more extraordinary than all those 

 previously known. "I measured the circumfe- 

 rence of the condyle or joint of a thigh bone in 

 the museum," says Bakewell, "and formd it to be 

 thirty-five inches! and the thiijh bone of a larger 

 [specimen] at a distance from the condyle mea- 

 sured tweny-five inches in circumference." "fma- 

 gine an animal of the lizard tribe," says professor 

 Siliimnn, three or four times as large as the largest 

 crocodile, havinfjjaws with teeth equal in size to 

 the incisors of the rhinoceros, and crested with 

 horns! Such a creature must have been the Igua- 

 nodon. "Marvellous as it may appear," says 

 ISlanteil "v.-e cannot but infer that some individu- 

 als attained a height of nine or ten feet, and were 

 from sixtij to one hundred feet in length! A cir- 

 cumstance even more extraordinary than its ma.?- 

 nitude,' is that of its havino; perfirmed mastication 

 like [an ox]; its teeth, which are of a verv pecu- 

 liar brm, beinfj in general worn down by the ope- 

 ration of irrinding its food." 



The "daif in which this animal lived has been 

 called the Afje of Reptiles. ^'There was a pe- 

 riod," says Mantell, "when the earth was peo- 

 pled by oviparous qvadnmeds of a most appalling 

 magnitude; and that reptiles were the lords of cre- 

 ation, before the existence of the human race." 

 This agrees exactly with the 21st verse of the Isf 

 chapter of Genesis, if we substitute greai reptiles 

 or "great whales," which the Hebrew text re- 

 quires.* "It is impossible," saj-s Cuvier, "not to 

 acknowledge as a certain truth, the numhe.r, the 

 largeness, and the variety of the reptiles which in- 

 habited the seas or the land, at the epoch in which 

 the strata of Jura were deposited." 



We shall briefly mention a few of the most re- 

 markable of these creatures, for which we ave in- 

 debted, as well as for most of the precedinix fiicts, 

 to Silliman's Journal, appearing there mostly in 



* Pyritiferous slate of Eaton. 

 *Silliman's Journal, vol. xxv. p. Go — 6. 



the form of quotations however, fi'om European 

 works. 



"The Ichthyosaurus, (fish-like liznrd) of which 

 several species have been discovered, had a large 

 and long head, with jaws armed with teeth like 

 the crocodile; enormous eyes; a short neck; a 

 large and long body furnished with four broad 

 and flat padclles, composed of numerous bones, 

 and was evndentl}- destined to live iu the sea". 



This description is fi-om Rlantell. One lately 

 di.scovered in England "iimst have been at least 

 thirty-five feet in length, and of considerable 

 breadth. 



The " Plesiosaurus (animal resembling a liz- 

 ard) is 3'et more remarkable. The head is very 

 small, and armed with numerous pointed teeth; 

 the neck of an enormmis length, and composed of 

 between thirty and forty vertebra;, being doable 

 the number "of that of any other animal, (the 

 swan which has the greatest number of cervical 

 vertibrBp havino; but twenty-three); the body like 

 that of the Ichthvosaurus, has four paddles; the 

 tail is short. This extraordinary creatures ap- 

 pears to have been but little calculated to make 

 rapid progress through the sea," continues Man- 

 tel!, "and was still less fitted for progressive mo- 

 tion on the land. It is therefore probable that it 

 swam on or near the surface of the water, carry- 

 ing his neck like a swan, and darting on its prey^ 



The Flero.'actylus had the wings of a bat, and 

 the structure of a reptile, with jaws furnished 

 with sharp teeth, aud claws with long hooked 

 nails. We have not seen any notice of its size. 



"The Mosnsaurus, or fossil animal of Maes- 

 fricht, attained the size of the crocodile, appears 

 to have been aquatic like the latter, and to have 

 moved its vast tail from side to side as an oar." 



"The MegahsauTus (o-reat lizanl) must have 

 been nenvly fyrty-five feet in length and seven or 

 eight feet in height. It was probable a terrestial 

 animal." 



These notices are principally intended how- 

 ever, to serve as an introduction to other wonders 

 of the primeval ages. In the last number of Sil- 

 liman's Journal, there is a long article on the foot 

 viarks of birds on rocks by Professor Hitchcock 

 vv'hoisso advantageously known for his Geologi- 

 cal Survey of Massachusetts. Eight different 

 kinds of tracks have been examined, and engra- 

 vings exhibit the shape of the feet. These dis- 

 coveries were principally made last summer. 



These foot-marks have been found in Jiuc pla- 

 ces near the banks of the Connecticut ^river, along 

 a line of thirtv miles in extent. The rock in 

 which they occur, is called by Prof. H. "new red 

 sandstone,'" and it appears to be eqiiivalent to the 

 Saliferous Rocks which abound in the northern 

 parts of this district. It is worthy of remark that 

 none of these tracks have been found where its 

 surface lias been exposed for many years to the 

 weather. 



Prof H. thinks it evident that those foot-marks 

 were "made by an animal vv-ith twoibet, and usu- 

 ally three toes. In a few inslances a fourth or 

 hiiid toe, has made an impression, not directly in 

 the rear, but inclining somewhat inward; and in 

 one instance, the four toes all point forward. 

 Sometimes these ternate depressions run into one 

 another, as the toes approach the point of conver- 

 gence; but they also sometimes stop short of that 

 point, as if the animal had not sunk deep enough 



