8o VESTIGES OF THE 



of tlie finny tribes. It was at first thought that no 

 creatures approaching them in character now inhabit the 

 earth ; but latterly Mr. Darwin has discovered, in the 

 reptile-peopled GalajDagos Islands, in the South Sea, a 

 marine saurian from three to four feet long. 



The Quegalosaurus was an enormous lizard — a land 

 creature, also carnivorous. The 2'>^^'^^odact}jlus was another 

 lizard, but furnished with bat-like wings to pursue its 

 prey in the air, and varying in size between a cormorant 

 and a snipe. Crocodiles abounded, and some of these 

 were herbivorous. Such was the iguanodon, a creature 

 of the character of the iguana of the Ganges, but reaching 

 a hundred feet in length, or twenty times that of its 

 modern representative. 



There are also numerous tortoises ^ some of them reach- 

 ing a great size ; and Professor Owen has found in War- 

 wickshire some remains of an animal of the batrachian 

 order,* to which, from the peculiar form of the teeth, he 

 has given the name of labyrinthodon. Thus, three of 

 Cuvier's four orders of reptilia (sauria, chelonia, and 

 'batrachia) are represented in this formation, the serpent 

 order ioj^hidia) being alone wanting. 



The variegated marl beds which constitute the upper- 

 most group of the formation, present two additional 

 genera of huge saurians — the phytosaurus and masto- 

 donsaurus. 



It is in the upper beds of the red sandstone tliat beds 

 of salt first occur. These are sometimes of such thick- 

 ness, that the mine from which the material has been 

 excavated looks like a lofty church. We see in the 

 present world no circumstances calculated to produce the 

 formation of a bed of rock salt ; yet it is not difiicult to 



* The order to which frou-s and toads bflonir. 



