2316 Reptiles. 



whale ; a determination which has subsequently been confirmed by Professors Miiller 

 and Agassiz. Mr. Dixon, of Worthing, has discovered many fossil vertebrae in the 

 Eocene tertiary clay at Bracklesham, which belong to a large species of an extinct 

 genus of serpent (Palceophis), founded on similar vertebrae from the same formation in 

 the Isle of Sheppey. The largest of these ancient British snakes was 20 feet in 

 length ; but there is no evidence that they were marine. 



" The sea saurians of the secondary periods of geology have been replaced in the 

 tertiary and actual seas by marine mammals. No remains of Cetacea have been 

 found in lias or oolite, and no remains of Plesiosaur, or Ichthyosaur, or any other se- 

 condary reptile, have been found in Eocene or later tertiary deposits, or recent, on the 

 actual sea-shores, and that the old air-breathing saurians floated when they died has 

 been shown in the ' Geological Transactions • (vol. v., second series, p. 512). The in- 

 ference that may reasonably be drawn from no recent carcass or fragment of such 

 having ever been discovered, is strengthened by the corresponding absence of any trace 

 of their remains in the tertiary beds. 



" Now, on weighing the question, whether creatures meriting the name of * great 

 sea-serpent' do exist, or whether any of the gigantic marine saurians of the secondary 

 deposits may have continued to live up to the present time, it seems to me less proba- 

 ble that no part of the carcass of such reptiles should have ever been discovered in a 

 recent or unfossilized state, than that men should have been deceived by a cursory 

 view of a partly submerged and rapidly moving animal, which might only be strange 

 to themselves. In other words, I regard the negative evidence from the utter absence 

 of any of the recent remains of great sea-serpents, krakens, or Enaliosauria, as stronger 

 against their actual existence than the positive statements which have hitherto weighed 

 with the public mind in favour of their existence. A larger body of evidence from 

 eye-witnesses might be got together in proof of ghosts than of the sea-serpent. 

 Richard Owen, Lincoln's Inn Fields, November 9, 1848." — From the ' Times.'* 



The Great Sea-Serpent. By C. Cogswell, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 



" The great sea-snake's the subject of my verse : 

 For though mine eyes have never yet beheld him, 

 Nor ever shall desire the hideous sight, 

 Yet many accounts of men, of truth unstained, 

 Whose every word I firmly do believe, 

 Show it to be a very frightful monster. 



* * * * * 



Methinks he seems another Behemoth, 



Or the Leviathan, who doth despise 



All arms, as swords, and guns, and glittering spears, 



For iron is to him like straw or flax, 



And copper like the twigs that bend or break, 



For thus he is described in Holy Writ." 



Mr. John Dass, quoted by Pontoppidan. 



It grows more and more necessary every day to acknowledge the existence of a vast 

 form of marine animal bearing some resemblance to a serpent. The recent letter of 



