His Writings 



89 



legs were six feet high, and his length fifty feet. 

 Again in the sea we have the ichthyosaurus, a 

 creature half-fish, half-reptile and half-whale, 

 having the head of a crocodile, eyes eighteen 

 inches across, a tail similar to a whale, and a 

 body thirty feet long. Yet the most powerful of 

 all was the cetiosaurus, a monster a hundred feet 

 long with jaws extending a full twenty feet — 

 guided in its course with large fins armed with 

 powerful claws to catch its prey, and how ravenous 

 must this creature have been, which required food 

 in bulk of twenty oxen to satisfy its ravenous 

 appetite. 



M The further we go back the more terrible 

 the animals become, the nearer our times the more 

 they decrease in might. Generations have come 

 and gone, the earth has become enriched by their 

 existence. Mighty forests have been upheaved 

 and humbled in dust, other changes have gradually 

 covered them with mud and sand, which in time 

 has become one solid mass buried in the bowels 

 of the earth. This is the rich substance known 

 as coal, the secret of man's greatest strength, the 

 motive power of his vast machinery." 



The next extract is the introduction to his 

 1 Essay on Diamonds,' published in the Christmas 

 Number of the Aliwal Observer for 1870. 



i 



