REPTILES. 295 



diameter, and six feet in height. The foot of the animal 

 when living must have equalled in size that of the largest 

 Rhinoceros. The entire length of the Tortoise, from the most 

 careful admeasurement, was inferred to have heen about 

 eighteen feet, and its height more than seven. 



These remains were collected during a period of eight or 

 nine years, along a range of eighty miles of hilly country. 

 From the circumstances under which they were met with, in 

 crushed fragments, contained in elevated strata which have 

 undergone considerable disturbance, no perfect " shell," nor 

 anything approaching to a complete skeleton, was found. In 

 1835, when the first of these fossil remains were discovered, 

 there was no record of any colossal reptiles of this order; and 

 it became a question, " To what animal could these enormous 

 bones have belonged?" Vain, for a long time, was all 

 research and all conjecture; the problem was still unsolved, 

 and the interest attached to its solution continued daily to 

 increase. At length a small Land Tortoise furnished to the 

 investigators the data for its solution. One of its diminutive 

 leg bones resembled in form one of the immense fossils. And, 

 as in the " Castle of Otranto," the helmet which filled the 

 court-yard, the gigantic foot, the colossal hand, and the sword 

 which required a hundred men to carry it, were all associated 

 together; so, when the creature which had borne this pon- 

 derous fossil had been discovered, the mystery was revealed, 

 and no difficulty was felt in assigning to every other bone its 

 proper place.* 



The researches of geologists have shown that several species 

 of both Land and Freshwater Tortoises lived, in former times, 

 in these countries; and the remains of the marine species 

 discovered have been so numerous as to prove that our own 

 seas were at one period more abundantly provided with 

 Turtles, of different kinds, " than the same extent of ocean 

 in any of the warmer parts of the earth at the present day."t 



Having presented the Tortoise to our readers under so many 



* The name bestowed on this fossil Tortoise was Colossochelys Atlas : 

 the first term literally, "Colossal Tortoise" having reference to its 

 size ; the second to an Indian tradition, of the world having been placed 

 on the back of an elephant, which was sustained on a huge Tortoise ; the 

 creature thus performing the duty of Atlas, who, according to classic fable, 

 supported the world on his shoulders. 



t Professor Owen, in a paper read before the Geological Society, 1841. 



