400 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



solid ferruginous sandstone, far below the chalk, and probably more 

 than one thousand feet beneath the upper strata, that were subse- 

 quently formed over him, many of which have been swept away by 

 diluvial action, or by other catastrophes. 



In July, 1832, another Saurian was discovered in the sandstone of 

 Tilgate Forest. It is described by Mr. Mantell, in his late work on 

 the Geology of the South East of England, and a plate of its bones 

 is annexed. The reptile is named, by Mr. Mantell, the HylcBosaurus, 

 or Wealden Lizard. Vertebrae, ribs, coracoids, and other bones, were 

 found, either in connexion or in juxta-position, making an imposing 

 mass, and very firmly cemented into the sandstone. The animal was 

 gigantic, but its exact dimensions are not given ; its tail is supposed 

 to have been twenty five feet long. 



The vegetable remains, as well as the fishes and shells, and rolled 

 stones, that are found entombed in the same strata, show that they 

 were once the upper surface and formed part of a vast estuary, which 

 was subsequently buried by the marine formation of the chalk and its 

 attendant strata. 



Organized Remains in very recent rocks. 



It is easily understood, why no land quadrupeds are found in form- 

 ations earlier than the tertiary. Until this period, there was not dry 

 land enough for terrestrial quadrupeds. "When they were created, it 

 was evidently a period more advanced, than that which produced the 

 ancient crocodiles; more land was uncovered, but a multitude of natu- 

 ral basins, forming lakes, were still full of water, and as the strata 

 which they now present, were in the course of being deposited, vari- 

 ous quadrupeds, fortuitously conveyed into the water, or perhaps 

 drowned by accident or by partial inundations, became buried and, 

 solidified, and their remains are now found in the basins of Paris and 

 London, and of the Isle of Wight. They are much less frequent, 

 than the marine animal remains of the earlier strata, probably, both 

 because the animals were much less numerous, and because the cir- 

 cumstances attending their existence and death, were far less favora^ 

 ble to their inhumation and preservation. 



It is worthy of remark, also, that in the very strata in which they 

 are contained, the relics of water-born animals are very numerous. 

 It is believed, by Cuvier and Brongriiart, whose elaborate investiga- 

 tion of the Paris strata, has been several years before the world, that 

 there were successive periods, in which marine and fresh-water shells 

 were, alternately and successively, produced in the waters* 



