Miscellanies. 165 



gent observer will at once perceive, that such an assemblage can be 

 explained only by supposing the strata to have been formed in the bed 

 of a river or estuary. Imagine a river flowing through a country in- 

 habited by lizards, turtles, &c., and clothed with forests of plants, al- 

 lied to the palms and arborescent ferns. If the country were com- 

 posed of primitive rocks, as granite, cic. we might expect deposi- 

 tions of clay, and siliceous sand and sandstone, with particles of mica, 

 quartz, pebbles of various sizes, derived from the veins in the gran- 

 ite ; bones, more or less rolled, of the lizards and turtles ; associated 

 with the remains of the fishes and shells that lived and died in the 

 river, and the stems and leaves of the vegetables that grew upon its 

 banks; in short, such a collection of organic remains, imbedded in 

 clay and sand, as the one in the case before us. 



In the strata of Tilgate Forest, the remains of four enormous rep- 

 tiles have been identified, and there are also bones and teeth which 

 belong to others not yet determined. The following are the most 

 remarkable. 



Iguanodon.* — An herbivorous reptile, related to the Iguana. 

 This monster of the ancient world must have equalled the elephant 

 in bulk, as the enormous bones in this collection indisputably prove. 

 Its remains have been found in Sussex only, and were first describ- 

 ed by the author in a memoir, published in the Transactions of the 

 Royal Society for 1825. Of this gigantic reptile, the collection con- 

 tains bones of the head, teeth, vertebrae, clavicles, coracoid bone, ribs, 

 chevron bone, femur, leg bones, (tibia and Jlbula,) metatarsal bones, 

 phalanges, ungueal bone, and ho7-n. The femur, tibia, and fibula ly- 

 ing together in the lower division of this case, were found near each 

 other, and belonged to the same limb ; from their immense size some 

 idea may be formed of the gigantic proportion of the leg and thigh 

 of the original animal. 



Megalosaurus. — A reptile allied to the Monitor,f but almost of as 

 enormous a magnitude as the Iguanodon. Its remains occur also in 

 the slate at Stonesfield, near Oxford, and were first described by Dr. 

 Buckland. In this case there are teeth, vertebrae, femur, and other 

 bones. 



* So called from its teeth resembling those of the Iguana. 



f There are stuffed specimens of the Iguana and Monitor in the Collection, for 

 comparison. 



