416 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 



the Palasontographica. Along Cuvierian lines, Meyer and 

 Owen extended in Europe the knowledge of fossil reptiles, 

 while the able American palaeontologists, J. Leidy, O. C. 

 Marsh, and E. D. Cope, were at work on the reptilian remains 

 of North America. 



The osteology of the Jurassic Ichthyosaurians was early 

 elucidated by Conybeare, Hawkins, Buckland, Owen, Jaeger, 

 Bronn, and others ; valuable work on this group of Saurian 

 has been more recently contributed by Seeley, G. Baur, and 

 E. Fraas. The Plesiosauridae, Nothosauridae, and Rhyncho- 

 cephali have also been carefully investigated by paleeontologists. 

 A classical treatise by Huxley (1875) signally advanced the 

 knowledge of the genetic relations of the fossil and living 

 crocodiles. The Triassic Parasuchia were made known by 

 Meyer, Huxley, and Cope, the Pseudosuchia by O. Fraas, 

 and more recently by the careful and accurate studies of E. T. 

 Newton (1894). Jurassic and Cretaceous crocodiles have 

 been treated by Koken and Dollo, and the Tertiary forms by 

 Vaillant, Lydekker, and Toula, in addition to Meyer, Owen, and 

 other earlier authors. 



Palasontological literature is more limited regarding fossil 

 lizards and serpents. The Mosasauridae or Pythonomorphs, 

 whose affinities with the lizards were recognised by Cuvier, 

 were afterwards elevated to the rank of a separate order by 

 Cope, and have formed the subject of several important 

 memoirs by Marsh, Cope, Owen,_Dollo, Merriam, Williston, 

 and Gaudry. Remains of the winged Saurians had been 

 known in the eighteenth century, but it was Cuvier who first 

 recognised that their systematic position was among the 

 Reptilia. The exquisitely preserved skeletons from the litho- 

 graphic shales of the Franconian and Swabian Jura aroused 

 great interest, and were the subject of many excellent memoirs 

 by Count Miinster, Goldfuss, Meyer, Wagner, Fraas, Marsh, 

 Zittel, Ammon, and others. Liassic Pterodactyles were 

 described by Buckland, Theodori, Owen, and Plieninger, and 

 Jurassic and Cretaceous forms were carefully examined by 

 several of the leading authorities among British and American 

 palaeontologists. 



The gigantic, extinct Dinosaurs were discovered relatively 

 late. Buckland, in 1824, made known the first remains of 

 this order under the generic title of Megalosaurus. In the 

 following year, Mantell discovered the remains of Iguanodon 



