FOSSIL SAURIANS. 167 
former population of our planet, we cannot but 
regard with feelings of new and unusual interest, 
the comparatively diminutive existing orders of 
that most ancient family of quadrupeds, with 
the very name of which we usually associate a 
sentiment of disgust. We shall view them with 
less contempt, when we learn from the records of 
geological history, that there was a time when 
reptiles not only constituted the chief tenants, 
and most powerful possessors of the earth, but 
extended their dominion also over the waters of 
the seas ; and that the annals of their history 
may be traced back through thousands of years, 
antecedent to that latest point in the progressive 
stages of animal creation, when the first parents 
of the human race were called into existence. 
Persons to whom this subject may now be 
presented for the first time, will receive, with 
much surprise, perhaps almost with incredulity, 
such statements as are here advanced. It 
must be admitted, that they at first seem much 
more like the dreams of fiction and romance, 
than the sober results of calm and deliberate 
investigation ; but to those who will examine the 
evidence of facts upon which our conclusions 
rest, there can remain no more reasonable doubt 
of the former existence of these strange and 
curious creatures, in the times and places we 
assign to them ; than is felt by the antiquary, 
who, finding the catacombs of Egypt stored 
