CRETACEOUS FORMATIONS. 107 



had prepared to present to the College, we discovered teeth possessing the form and 

 structure of the fossil specimens." (Phil. Trans., 1825, p. 180.) And he afterwards 

 adds: — "the name Iguanodon, derived from the form of the teeth, (and which I have 

 adopted at the suggestion of the Rev. W. Conybeare,) will not, it is presumed, be 

 deemed objectionable." (lb., p. 184.) 



The fortunate discovery by Mr. Bensted was one of those which Baron Cuvier's 

 prophetic glance saw hidden in the womb of time, and the birth of which has served 

 to verify his sagacious conjecture, that some of the great bones collected by Dr. Mantell 

 from the Wealden of Sussex, belonged to the same animal, unique in its genus, as the 

 teeth ; and also to confirm the accuracy of their discoverer's determination of the 

 clavicle, femur, and tibia, figured and described by him in the ' Geology of the South-east 

 of England,' 8vo, 1833, pp. 307—10, Pis. II and III. 



In the work entitled ' Wonders of Geology,' in which the author gives a miniature 

 view of the parts of the skeleton of the Iguanodon, recomposed by Mr. Bensted and 

 himself, he points out several " vertebrse of the back and tail," " ribs," " the two 

 clavicles," " one of the bones {radius) of the fore-arm (subsequently recognised by 

 Mr. G. B. Holmes, of Horsham, and by Dr. Mantell, as the humerus)," "two 

 mefacatyal bones," " the two ossa ilia," " the right and left thigh-bone, or femur,'' " a 

 leg-bone, or tibia," " bones of the toes (^metatarsal and plialangeal) of the hind feet." 

 The parts marked " e" as metacarpals, are those named " radius' and " idiia" in 

 T. XXXIV. 



The femora measure each thirty -three inches in length, and one of them originally 

 stood in a vertical position, as regards the strata, which are nearly horizontal ; and it 

 projected from the solid limestone bed, which embraced its lower extremity, and passed 

 nearly through the superincumbent bed of sandstone. The author of the ' Notice of 

 the Discovery of the Iguanodon in the Maidstone duarry,'* infers from this circum- 

 stance a proof, "that these two beds, now so different in consistency, were,* in the one 

 case, ' loose sand,' and in the other, ' tenacious mud,' at the period when this shattered 

 and decomposing body of the Iguanodon sank to the bottom of the sea, and became 

 covered up by an abundant deposition." Dr. Buckland remarks, with reference to the 

 discovery of this skeleton, in strata of the cretaceous period : — " That both the sand 

 and the limestone are ■marine formations there can be no doubt; for though wood and 

 vegetable substances are not uncommon in these beds, yet the limestone abounds in 

 ammonites, shark's teeth, and other sea productions, while a small sea-shell was also 

 found fixed upon one of the bones of the Iguanodon." Both strata of the Kentish Rag 

 are now satisfactorily proved to belong to the neoconiian or lower division of the 

 Greensand formation, which intervenes between the Wealden and the upper Greensand, 

 or in some parts of England between the Wealden and the Chalk. Dr. Buckland has 

 remarked, in reference to this discovery of the Iguanodon, that it " shows that the 



* ' Philos. Magazine,' loc. cit. 



