FOSSIL MONITOR. 265 



a careful study of its osteology, ascertained that it must 

 have formed an intermediate genus between those ani- 

 mals of the lizard tribe, which have a long and forked 

 tongue, and those which have a short tongue and the pa- 

 late armed with teeth. The length of the skeleton ap- 

 pears to have been nearly twenty-four feet. The head is 

 a sixth of the whole length of the animal ; a proportion 

 approaching very near to that of the crocodile, but dif- 

 fering much from that of the monitor, the head of which 

 animal forms hardly a twelfth part of the whole length. 

 The tail must have been very strong, and its width at its 

 extremity must have rendered it a most powerful oar, and 

 have enabled the animal to have opposed the most agi- 

 tated waters. From this circumstance, and from the other 

 remains which accompany those of this animal, Cuvier is 

 of opinion that it must have been an inhabitant of the 

 ocean. We have here then an instance of an animal far 

 surpassing in its size any of the animals of those genera 

 to which it approaches the nearest in its general charac- 

 ters ; at the same time, that, from its accompanying or- 

 ganic remains, we find reason to believe it to have been 

 an inhabitant of the ocean, whilst none of the existing 

 lizard tribe are known to live in salt water. However 

 remarkable these circumstances are, still they are not 

 more wonderful than those we contemplate in many of 

 the numerous discoveries in the natural history of the an- 

 cient world. We have already seen a tapir of the size of 

 an elephant ; the megalonix, an animal of the sloth tribe, 

 as large as a rhinoceros ; and here we have a monitor pos- 

 sessing the magnitude of a crocodile. 



Salamandra. Salamander. 



In the valley of Aitmiihl, near Aichsted and Pappen- 

 heim, and also at Aeningen, there is a formation of calca- 

 rious slate rich in petrifactions. One of the most re- 



34 





