Geological Age of Reptiles. 359 



heard this fire ; its noise resembled that of fired wet gunpowder. I 

 ord-ered him to lower the vane and come down, but scarcely had he 

 taken the vane from its place, when the fire fixed itself vpon the top 

 of the main-mast, from which it was impossible to remove it." 



23. Since, then, the conducting power of bodies differs only in 

 degree, and that the action by which they are assailed is the result of 

 a great natural agent quite independent of them, we may expect to 

 find all bodies liable to be assailed by lightning, though the effects 

 may be most apparent when the conducting power is imperfect. 

 Thus we find cases on record, of ships struck by lightning in which 

 no metallic spindles were present, or other iron work about the mast- 

 head ;* moreover, it is by no means an uncommon circumstance to 

 find trees and rocks rent asunder by lightning, and to hear of men 

 and quadrupeds, even in a plain and open country, destroyed at the 

 time of a thunder-storm, when the electric matter strikes the earth's 

 surface. [A sequel is promised, which has not arrived.] — Ed. of 

 Am. Jour. 



Art. XVII. — The Geological Age of Reptiles ; by Gideon Man- 

 tell, Esq. F. R. S. he. he. 



[From the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.] 



Among the numerous interesting facts which the researches of 

 modern geologists have brought to light, there is none more extra- 

 ordinary and imposing than the discovery, that there was a period 

 when the earth ivas peopled by oviparous quadrupeds of a most ap- 

 palling magnitude, and that reptiles were the Lords of the Creation^ 

 before the existence of the human race ! These creatures of the an- 

 cient world, many of which, from their extraordinary size and form, 

 rival the fabled monsters of antiquity, existed in immense numbers, 

 and in latitudes now too cold for the habitation of modern oviparous 

 quadrupeds. Their remains occur in strata far more ancient than 

 those which contain the reliquiae of viviparous animals, and are found 

 in marine as well as in fresh water deposites. Some of them, from 

 their organization, have been evidently fitted to live in the sea only, 

 while others were terrestrial, and many were inhabitants of the lakes 

 and rivers. The animal and vegetable remains with which the fossil 



* See Philosophical Transactions, vols. xlix. and Ixix. damage done to !he sheer 

 hulk at Plymouth, and on board the Atlas, East Indiaman. 



