174 Miscellanies. 
and also various remains of marine plants in chalk. Among the 
most interesting objects in this museum, are the fossils from the Sus- 
sex beds beneath the chalk formation. Many of the vegetables ap- 
pear allied to the ferns and palms, &c. of tropical climates, and - 
prove the existence of dry land, at or before the ‘period when the 
strata that contain them were deposited. Of these vegetable remains 
there are numerous fine specimens in this collection, comprising all 
the fossil species discovered in Sussex. But it is the remains of 
large animals evidently formed for walking on land, that renders the 
museum of Mr. Mantell so unique. In the strata of Tilgate Forest, 
Mr. M. has identified no less than four gigantic reptiles. The Igua- 
nodon, so named from its resemblance in many respects to the living 
Iguana, is justly regarded by Mr. M. as the most gratifying result of 
his labors. To form some notion of the immense magnitude of this 
animal, it may be useful to mention, that I measured the circumfer- 
- ence of the condyle, or joint of a thigh-bone, in the museum, and 
found it to be thirty-five inches! and the thigh-bone of a larger ani- 
mal at a distance from the condyle, measured twenty-five inches im 
circumference ; were this thigh clothed with muscles and integu- 
ments of suitable proportions, where is the living animal with a limb 
that could rival this extremity of a lizard of the primitive ages of the 
world ? 
~ Among the other bones in this museum, from Tilgate Foret : 
there are some of one or more species of birds. It ought, however, 
to be remarked, that as the supposed bird’s bones found in the Lias, 
have been discovered to belong to a flying lizard, it may be doubtful 
whether these bones do not belong to a similar species of reptile 5 
Mr. M., whose authority as a comparative anatomist ought to have 
great cp is, however, inclined to refer these bones to birds.— 
There are also the remains of three species of Turtles from the Sus- 
sex beds, two of which are supposed to be fresh-water ; the remains 
of fishes are also numerous: they consist chiefly of detached bones, 
teeth, and scales; no entire skeleton has been found. 
** A very satisfactory description of the Fossils and Strata of Tit 
gate Forest, is given in the second volume of Mr. Mantell’s Ilustra- 
tions of the Geology of Sussex, a work which ought to be in every 
library where natural history is cultivated : the forty-two plates of the 
first volume, it has already been mentioned, were engraved by Mrs. 
Mantell, without whose able co-operation it would have been impo: 
sible for Mr. M., occupied as he is in the arduous labors of an ext 
