Scientific Intelligence. 409 
As we walked through these rooms in company with Dr. 
Mantell, the great exponnder of these preadamites, we felt as if 
we were almost identified with the hoary antiquity of which 
these wonderful remains are the indubitable witnesses. In the 
coutinental museums we saw many fine remains of this large 
family, but in no place so vast a collection as in the British Mu- 
seum. ‘I'ruly the fossil Saurian age is fully recorded between the 
chalk and the coal; and the analogous forms now existing on 
earth—the crocodiles, the alligators, gavials, caymans, Iguanas, 
&c., not to mention the marine Saurians of the Gallipagos islands 
and numerous other Lacertine animals, furnish sufficient evidence 
that these creatures, althongh hideous and revolting, have entered 
largely into the plan of creation. We must refrain from citing 
particulars from Dr. Mantell’s account of this fossil family, which 
occupies: three-fifths of his work, (300 pages out of 500,) an 
which furnishes a Incid and interesting description of their oste- 
ology, functions and rank in the scale of being, besides descrip- 
tions of the strata in which they occur, and other geological facts 
bearing upon their history. ( 
‘he work continues with accounts of the fossil Carnivora of 
the Caverns, the Marsu pials of Stonesfield, fossil shells and corals, 
fossil fishes, and mammalian remains. 
This hand-book is properly a scientific treatise upon the more 
remarkable fossil animals of the museum, abounding in valua- 
ble remarks of general interest, as well as scientific descriptions, 
and it may well stand as a third volume to the distinguished 
author’s ** Wonders of Geology.” 
SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 
I. CuHEMIsTRY AND Parysics. 
1. Optical Properties of Isomorphous Substances.—Srnanmont has 
communicated the results of an investigation and comparison of the 
Szconp Sens, Vol. XIII, No. 39.—May, 1852. 
