ON BRITISH FOSSIL REPTILES. 191 



Chelone, sp. ind. Wealden. 

 Chelone pulchriceps, O. 

 Chelone Benstedi, Owen. 

 Chelone longiceps, O. 

 Chelone breviceps, O. 

 Chelone convexa, O. 

 Chelone subcristata, O. 

 Chelone latiscutata, O. 



Order Ophidia. 



Palceophis toliapicus. 



Order Batrachia. 



LabyrintJiodon Salamandroides, Owen. 

 Labyrinthodon leptognathus, O. 

 Labyrinthodon pachygnathus, O. 

 Labyrinthodon ventricosus, O. 

 Labyrinthodon scutulatus, O. 



SUMMARY. 



A retrospective glance at the catalogue of Reptiles which formerly existed 

 on that portion of the earth's surface constituting the present small island of 

 Britain, and which are noAv extinct, must call forth such novel and surprising re- 

 flections on the dealings of Providence with the animated beings of this planet, 

 as may well lead, in the first place, to a questioning of the truth of the af- 

 firmations with which the present summary commences. Did the numerous, 

 strange, and gigantic representatives of the several orders of Reptiles actually 

 at any time live and move and propagate their kind in the localities where 

 their bones are now so abundantly found ? Are not these bones the relics 

 rather of antediluvian creatures, which perished in the great historical Cata- 

 strophe of Water, and have been washed from latitudes suitable to their exist- 

 ence to more northern shores ? Are the British Fossil Reptiles actually 

 extinct, and may not some living representatives of the Labyrinthodons, 

 Enaliosaurs, Dinosaurs, &c., still remain to be discovered in those warmer 

 regions where alone large species of reptiles are now known to exist ? 



Such questions and explanations of the phaenomena which are the subject 

 of the present Report will be most likely to suggest themselves to those who are 

 not conversant with the truths of Geology, and who may never have been eye- 

 witnesses of the circumstances under which fossil bones of reptiles are found. 



In many 'cases these circumstances are so opposed to any that can be con- 

 ceived to have been produced by the operation of a superincumbent bed of 

 waters upon the present surface of the earth during a period of less than one 

 year, that the earliest observers to whom the operations of a temporary 

 general deluge suggested the first explanation of the appearance of the re- 

 mains of a large and strange animal, were irresistibly led to the conviction 

 that the conditions under which such fossil animal was found Avere wholly 

 inexplicable on the supposition of its carcase having been left by the re- 

 tiring waters of a flood. Thus the good Quaker of Whitby, in his letter 

 to Dr. Fothergill, recounting the discovery of the extinct species of Croco- 

 dile that now bears his name ( Telcosaurus Chapmanni), says, " The bones 

 were covered five or six feet with the water every full sea, and were about 

 nine or ten yards from the cliff", which is nearly perpendicular, and about sixty 



