330 ON THE STATE OF THE FOSSIL REMAINS 
conclude that the reptiles, and the terrestrial plants, 
like the zoophytes, and mollusca, and fishes of the 
chalk, lived on the very spots where we now 
find them entombed ; for, with the exception of 
the beds of shells, and among the vegetables, per- 
haps, the Equiseta Lyellii, (which are so local, and 
occur in such quantities, and with but so little an 
intermixture of other plants,) all bear marks of 
having been transported from a distance by water. 
But although three fourths of the bones which we 
discover are more or less broken and rolled ; the 
teeth detached from the jaws ; the vertebrae and 
bones of the extremities, with but very few ex. 
ceptions, disjointed and scattered here and there ; 
the stems of the plants torn to pieces ; and all these 
intermixed with pebbles of quartz, and flinty slate, 
and jasper, all concurring to prove that these 
heterogeneous materials have been subject to the 
action of water, yet it is manifest that the action 
was fluviatile, not littoral. The pebbles, though 
smooth from their angles having been worn away, 
are not rounded into beach or shingle ; they have 
been subject to the operation of currents and tor- 
rents, but not to attrition from the waves of the 
ocean. And if we reflect upon the immense 
strength which the tendons and ligaments of the 
joints possess, even in the pigmy lizards that are 
our contemporaries, we must be convinced that the 
gigantic limbs of the Iguanodon, and Megalosaurus, 
could not have been dissevered from their sockets 
without great violence, or by the decomposition of 
their tendons by long maceration ; and if tlie latter 
were alone the cause, we should not find the bones 
