Miscellanies. 165 
gent observer will at once perceive, that such an assemblage can be 
explained only by supposing the strata to have been formed in the bed 
of a river or estuary. Imagine a river flowing through a country in- 
habited by lizards, turtles, &c., and clothed with forests of plants, al- 
lied to the palms and arborescent ferns. If the country were com- 
posed of primitive rocks, as granite, &c. we might expect deposi- 
tions of clay, and siliceous sand and sandstone, with particles of mica, 
quartz, pebbles of various sizes, derived from the veins in the gran- 
ite ; bones, more or less rolled, of the lizards and turtles; associated 
with the remains of the fishes and shells that lived and died in the 
river, and the stems and leaves of the vegetables that grew upon its 
banks; in short, such a collection of organic remains, imbedded in 
clay and sand, as the one in the case before us. 
In the strata of Tilgate Forest, the remains of four enormous rep- 
tiles have been identified, and there are also bones and teeth which 
belong to others not yet determined. The following are the most 
remarkable. 3 
‘Iguanodon.*—An herbivorous reptile, related to the Iguana. 
This monster of the ancient world must have equalled the elephant 
in bulk, as the enormous bones in this collection indisputably prove. 
Its remains have been found in Sussex only, and were first describ- 
ed by the author in a memoir, published in the Transactions of the 
Royal Society for 1825. Of this gigantic reptile, the collection con- 
tains bones of the head, teeth, vertebra, clavicles, coracoid bone, ribs, 
chevron bone, femur, leg bones, (tibia and fibula,) metatarsal bones, 
phalanges, ungueal bone, and horn. The femur, tibia, and fibula ly- 
ing together in the lower division of this case, were found near each 
other, and belonged to the same limb ; from their immense size some 
idea may be formed of the gigantic proportion of the leg and thigh 
of the original animal. 2 aes 
Megalosaurus.—A reptile allied to the Monitor,} but almost of as 
enormous a magnitude as the Iguanodon. Its remains occur also in 
the slate at Stonesfield, near Oxford, and were first described by Dr. 
Buckland. In this case there are teeth, vertebra, femur, and other 
bones. 
nunca 
- * So called from its teeth resembling those of the Iguana. : 
t There are stuffed specimens of the Iguana and Monitor in the Collection, for. 
comp iss tos. ene LHS 
