Notice of Dr. ManteWs Medals of Creation. 131 



more than twice the size of those of the largest ostrich, and capa- 

 ble of containing in them several quarts of water; there are also 

 tracks of many intermediate dimensions. No bones having been 

 certainly identified as belonging to these birds, the geological 

 world were slow to believe ; but Dr. Bnckland, from the first, 

 admitted the facts, and decisive specimens of the impressed 

 tracks afterwards produced conviction in Dr. Mantell and his illus- 

 trious associates of the Geological Society of London ; even Mr. 

 Owen (whom peculiarly it became to be cautious, as he is now the 

 Cuvier of comparative anatomy) gave in to the genuineness of the 

 discovery, especially as the opportune arrival from New Zealand of 

 the huge bones of the Dinornis proved that gigantic birds had ex- 

 isted at a comparatively modern geological epoch — even as late as 

 the drift, and very possibly in the human era, — birds, some of 

 which were fully as large as the largest described by Prof. Hitch- 

 cock is supposed to have been. We must wait with patience for 

 the discovery of the bones of the fossil birds in the valley of the 

 Connecticut — a discovery which we very confidently expect, as 

 the tracks are very numerous, and the hydraulic and railway 

 constructions and excavations are every day opening the quarries 

 more and more. A large slab full of very perfect impressions of 

 the feet of these birds has been furnished to the British Museum 

 by Dr. James Deane, who very recently, with his associate Mr. 

 Marsh, has disentombed specimens still more extraordinary, which 

 are described in the present number of this Journal, as are also 

 specimens equally gigantic by Prof. Hitchcock. The latter gen- 

 tleman gave an account of quadrupedal tracks in the same rock 

 to the Geological Association in 1842, and Dr. Deane has done 

 the same in this number of this Journal ; while Dr. Dana has, by 

 chemical analysis, verified the genuineness of the coprolites dis- 

 covered some time ago by Prof. Hithcock, and believed to have 

 belonged to these birds.* 



* Their respective claims to the merit of original discovery in tliis department 

 of science have been recently presented to the public by Prof. Hitchcock and Dr. 

 Deane, in the forty seventh volume of this Journal. To Prof Hitchcock is due 

 the signal and incontestable merit, not only of pursuing these researches throiigh 

 a series of years, during the first five of which, from 1835 to 1840, he labored alone, 

 and discovered nearly thirty species, which were figured and described in his Final 

 Geological Report upon Massachusetts, but he has the still higher merit o? establish- 

 ing the philosophy of this subject. He is the distinguished expounder of this depart- 

 ment of geology, in the rock formation to which it appertains j and his name must 



