392 Miscellanies. 
existence so many monuments of the former state of the animate 
creation. Gentlemen, you will, 1am sure, allow me to dwell some- 
what at length on this topic, as one which is to me of no ordinary in- 
terest, for it is now nearly twenty years since I first had the good for- 
tune to become acquainted with Dr. Mantell—before I had the honor 
of knowing any one of the leading members of this society—before 
indeed I had heard of the existence of the society itself. At that 
time the collection at Lewes was in its infancy, yet contained some 
osteological remains of that class, for the illustration of which it has 
since become so celebrated. Even at that time my friend had in- 
dulged sanguine ‘anticipations from seeing a few fragments only of 
those bones, of the splendid discoveries which he should make in re- 
gard to these gigantic saurians—even then he foresaw some of the 
results which have since been realized. I had afterwards many op- 
portunities of revisiting Lewes, more than once in company with Dr. 
Buckland, and after each interval found Dr. Mantell’s museum en- 
riched with new fossils, some of his former theories and conjectures 
confirmed, and new views opening upon his mind. As your late 
President (Mr. Greenough) did not dwell in his address this morn- 
ing on the circumstances of peculiar difficulty under which some of 
these anatomical researches were carried on—difficulties which 
would have discouraged one of a less enthusiastic and sanguine tem- 
perament than Dr. Mantell, I will endeavor to point them out to 
you. A geologist who explores the wealds of Kent and Sussex, 
never meets with entire skeletons, as at Lyme Regis or at Whitby, 
or even small portions of a skeleton connected together. He must 
patiently wait and gather a multitude of detached and disconnected 
bones; almost every tooth, every rib, every vertebra, must be taken 
from a different place: and as if to make the task still more perplex- — 
ing, the relics of a variety of large species of saurians are promiscu- 
ously mingled together, and scattered as it were at random through 
the rocks. I believe that the skeletons in the ancient estuary were 
rolled backwards and forwards by the tides, till scarcely any two 
bones remained together: to reunite these into a whole, to refer to 
each skeleton the parts which once belonged to it, and not to con- 
found the different species together, was a task demanding no com- 
mon degree of skill, reflection and judgment, and an intimate knowl- 
edge of the laws governing the analogies of structure, and the rela= 
tions of the different genera of vertebrated animals. 
