THE CHALK PERIOD 



other animal family. But Dr. Mantell found that a little 

 lizard living in South America had teeth like those he had 

 discovered in his reptile remains, and he persisted in 

 his view. Many years later a wonderful find was made 

 near Brussels in a coal mine near Bernissart, the skeletons 

 of no fewer than twenty-two huge Iguanodons were found 

 complete and embedded in a fairly soft clay-like rock. 

 The authorities of the Government Museum took charge 

 of the place and most carefully removed the skeletons to 

 Brussels, where the complete skeletons of seven were with 

 enormous difficulty and care removed bit by bit from the 

 rock and set up as entire skeletons in the Brussels 

 Museum, where they may be seen. A replica of one of 

 them is at South Kensington. The fore feet of the 

 Iguanodon had five fingers, but the hind foot was very 

 much like that of a bird, and had only three toes, and the 

 bones of the pelvis or hip girdle were extraordinarily like 

 those of a bird. When Professor Huxley examined the first 

 fragments of the Iguanodori's remains he was inclined to 

 believe them to be those of a gigantic bird ; and it is 

 generally believed now that it is from this extraordinary 

 reptile stock that the birds were derived. 



But the great lake with all its varied stores was 

 doomed to sink lower and lower, till the great sea over- 

 whelmed England. Another ocean joining it to the east 

 overwhelmed Germany ; and the whole of Europe, south 

 of a line drawn through Scotland, Christiania, and Moscow, 

 became sunk under salt water. There were patches stand- 

 ing up here and there Ireland, Brittany, Cornwall, Spain 

 or a good part of it, Switzerland, part of Italy (and also 



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