of the British Association, to the meeting at Glasgow, 1 840. 447 



destined at some future day to be woven into the great web 

 in which all the sciences are knit together, are yet not appre- 

 ciable to the vulgar eye, and if simply submitted to public 

 judgement, would too often meet with silent neglect. Num- 

 berless, we say, are the subjects (and if your Association ex- 

 ceeds a centenary, still more numerous will they be) with 

 which the retired and skilful man may wish to grapple, and 

 still be deterred by his want of opportunity or of means. 

 Then is it that, adopting the well-balanced recommendations 

 of the men in whose capacity and rectitude you confide, 

 you step forward with your aids, and bring about these recon- 

 dite researches, the result of which in the volume under our 

 notice, we now proceed to consider. 



The first of these inquiries to which we advert, you called 

 for at the hands of Professor Owen, upon " British Fossil Rep- 

 tiles," one of the branches of Natural History, on a correct 

 knowledge of which the development of geology is intimately 

 dependent. 



The merits of the author selected for this inquiry are now 

 widely recognized, and he has, with justice, been approved as 

 the worthy successor of John Hunter, that illustrious Scotch- 

 man who laid the foundation of comparative anatomy in the 

 British isles. That this science is now taking a fresh spring, 

 would, we are persuaded, be the opinion of Cuvier himself, 

 could that eminent man view the progress which our young 

 countryman is making towards the completion of the temple 

 of which the French naturalist was the great architect. It is 

 therefore a pleasing reflection, that when we solicited Pro- 

 fessor Owen to work out this subject, we did not follow in the 

 wake of Europe's praise, but led the way (as this Association 

 ought always to do), in drawing forth the man of genius and 

 of worth; and the value of our choice has been since stamped 

 by the approval of the French Institute. 



If Englishmen* first perceived something of the natural 

 affinities of Palaeosaurians, it was reserved for Cuvier to com- 

 plete all such preliminary labour. The publication of his 

 splendid chapters on the Osteology of the Crocodile and other 

 Reptiles, drew new attention and more intelligent scrutiny to 

 these remains ; and it ought to be a subject of honest pride 

 to us to reflect that the most interesting fruits of the researches 

 of that great anatomist were early gathered by the English 

 Palaeontologists, Clift and Hume. One of our leaders, whose 

 report on Geology ornaments the volumes of this Associa- 

 tion, formed the genus Plesiosaurus, on an enlarged view of 

 the relation subsisting between the ancient and modern forms 



* Stukeley. 



