Tilt: EARTH. 37 



Herodotus, who lived but fifteen hundred years after the flooil, 

 vhat even the Egyptian priests could tell neither the time nor 

 the cause of their erection; I say, it maybe conjectured that 

 they were erected but a short time after the flood. It is not 



Of Birds the remains also are of rare occurrence ; and the same re. 

 mark might be applied to them, with respect to proportion, as to the preced- 

 in g^ order. It does seem a singular circumstance, that more birds have not 

 heen found fossil, when we consider that they now are, as regards species, 

 -five times as numerous as the Mammalia. 



Of Fishes, the most common form in which they are found is compressed 

 between the laminge of sandstones, schists, calcareous slates, and Purbeck 

 marble. Their teeth, scales, and vertebrae are abundant in many formations 

 between the has and London clay, particularly in the latter, and are even 

 yet more plentiful in the Suffolk crag beds. These teeth are commonly as. 

 cribed to varieties of sharks. Palates, or " denies molares," are found in the 

 oolites, and are beautifully preserved in chalk. A vast collection of irapres- 

 eions (if fish have long been known to exist in the calcareous schist of Monte 

 Bolca, many of which have been identified with living species. In M. 

 Bozza's collection, out of 100 known fishes, 4 were ascertained to be similar 

 to those living in the seas of Otaheite. In the Pans museum, containing 62 

 species, 23 are said to be common to Furopean seas ; 14 to Indian seas ; 2 to 

 African ; 13 to South American ; and 5 to North American. In another 

 collection, of 103 species, from the same place, M. Saussure decided that 34 

 resemble those of European seas ; 39 Asiatic; 3 African; 18 South Ameri. 

 can; 11 North American. 



Of oviparous quadrupeds (amphibia,) several genera are now known in 

 different formations ; but it does not appear that the fossil skeletons of these 

 animals assimilate precisely to living species. By far the greater number 

 are of extraordinary conformation. Thus, the Plesiosaurus {See Plate II. 

 <?§•. 1.) approaches to the genus Crocodile, but possesses double the number 

 of vertebrie ; a neck resembling the body of a serpent ; the head of a lizard ; 

 instead of feet-, it has swimmers like a whale, or paddles like those of turtles 

 and in other respects its proportions present some approach to those animals 

 The Ichthyosaurus (Jig. 2.) recedes from the form of the lizard family, and in 

 the structure of its vertebrae it approaches that of fishes. It has forty-one 

 cervical and dorsal \ ertebrae, and is also furnished with paddles, intermediate 

 between feet and fins. This genus exhibits the snout of a dolphin, the teeth 

 of a crocodile, the head and sternum of a lizard, the swimmers of a whale, 

 find the vertebrae of a fish. ■ Found in the lias, Stonesfield slate, Oxford clay, 

 Kimmerldge clay, coral rag or Malton oolite, and probably in other forma- 

 tions. The Megalosaurus, or gigantic lizard of Stonesfield and Tilgate Fores t , 

 is computed by Dr Buckland to be 40 ft. long. It possesses resemblances 

 both to the monitors and the crocodiles. Mr Mantell estimates the Iguano. 

 don, the great hertivorus reptile of the Tilgate stone, to have far exceeded 

 the last in magnitude, and to have attained the extraordinary length of 60 ft. 

 This appears to have been an inhabitant of fresh-water lakes and rivers. 

 Vertebrae of another saurian animal have lately been discovered in the Port, 

 land series at Thame, near Oxford, of still more extraordinsry dimensions. 

 'Jhey are twice as large as those of the Iguanodon, and four times the size of 



D 



