THE GREAT FISH-LIZARDS. 
51 
when certain important geographical and other changes took 
place, helping to cause the extinction of many other strange forms 
of life, as we shall see later on (see p. 147). 
They had a wide geographical range ; for their remains have 
been discovered in Arctic regions, in Europe, India, Ceram, 
North America, the east coast of Africa, Australia, and New 
Zealand. 
In American deposits they are represented by certain toothless 
forms, to which the name Sauranodon (“ toothless lizard ”) has 
been given. These have been discovered by Professor Marsh, in 
the Jurassic strata of the Rocky Mountains. They were eight or 
nine feet long, and in every other respect resembled Ichthyosaurs. 
As we have endeavoured to indicate in our illustration, the fish- 
lizards flourished in seas wherein animal, and doubtless vegetable 
life was very abundant. Any one who has collected fossils from 
the Lias of England will have found how full it is of beautiful 
organic remains, such as corals, mollusca, encrinites, sea-urchins, 
and other echinoids, fishes, etc. 
The climate of this period in Europe was mild and genial, or 
even semi-tropical. Coral reefs and coral islands varied the 
landscape. There is just one more point of interest that ought 
not to be omitted ; it refers to the manner in which these reptiles 
of the Lias age met their deaths, and were thus buried up in 
their rocky tombs. Sir Charles Lyell and other writers point out 
that the individuals found in those strata must have met with 
a sudden death and quick burial; for if their uncovered bodies 
had been left, even for a few hours, exposed to putrification 
and the attacks of fishes at the bottom of the sea, we should 
not now find their remains so completely preserved that often 
scarcely a single bone has been moved from its right place. 
What was the exact nature of this operation is at present a 
matter of doubt. 
