FOSSIL REPTILES. 343 



not that of the profoundest geologists. M. de Humboldt and 

 M. de Reuss agree to regard the schists of OEningen as belong- 

 ing to an ancient and regular formation : the last considers 

 them as belonging to his third calcareous formation. M. Bro- 

 gniart regards them as subordinate to the molasse of Switzer- 

 land, and as contemporaneous and, perhaps, posterior to the 

 gypsum of Paris. What is certain is, that they constitute a 

 formation of the fresh water, which contains animals utterly 

 unknown at present. 



The Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus. 



We are at length arrived at beings which, of all the reptiles, 

 and perhaps of all the fossil animals whose remains have been 

 found, bear the least resemblance to any of the living inhabit- 

 ants of our present world; which exhibit combinations of struc- 

 ture well calculated to astonish the naturalist; and which would 

 doubtless appear incredible to any one who either had not the 

 opportunity of observing them himself, or was not fully satisfied 

 of the authenticity of those authorities on which the relation of 

 their existence rested. In the first genus we behold the muzzle 

 of a dolphin, the teeth of a crocodile, the head and sternum of 

 a lizard, the paddles of the cetacea, but four in number, and 

 the vertebrae of a fish. In the other, with the same cetaceous 

 paddles, we find the head of a lizard, and a long neck resembling 

 the body of a serpent. 



Such are the astonishing characters which the ichthyosaurus 

 and plesiosaurus present to our inspection, after having been 

 buried for so many myriads of years under enormous masses of 

 stone and marble. It is to the most ancient secondary strata 

 that they belong. They are found only in those strata of marly 

 stone, or of greyish marble filled with pyrites and ammonites, 

 or in the oolitic beds ; all formations of the same order as the 

 chain of Jura. It is in England that their remains are most 

 peculiarly abundant 5 and we are proud to add, that it is to the 



