DRAGONS OF OLD TIME 
141 
a vertebra to work out a reptile, and a tooth in the case of a 
mammal. Seven or eight different ‘ characters/ ” he says, “ may 
be deduced from a reptilian vertebra.” It is of course impossible 
for any one to reconstruct an entire animal from a single bone, 
or a few teeth. Rot even Owen could do this — in spite of the 
rather frequent assertions to that effect one sees in newspapers 
and magazines ! 
Dr. G. A. Mantell says, Fossils have been eloquently and 
appropriately termed Medals of Creation,” and the eloquent 
passage by which those words are followed may be transcribed 
here. He goes on to say, “ For as an accomplished numismatist, 
even when the inscription of an ancient and unknown coin is 
illegible, can from the half-obliterated effigy, and from the style 
of art, determine with precision the people by whom, and the 
period when, it was struck: in like manner the geologist can 
decipher these natural memorials, interpret the hieroglyphics 
with which they are inscribed, and from apparently the most 
insignificant relics trace the history of beings of whom no other 
records are extant, and ascertain the forms and habits of unknown 
types of organisation whose races are swept from the face of the 
earth, ere the creation of man, and the creatures which are his 
contemporaries. Well might the illustrious Bergmann exclaim, 
‘ Sunt instar nummorum memoralium quce de prceteritis globi 
nostri fatis testantur, uhi omnia silent monumenta historica! ” 
Geology owes a deep debt of gratitude to the late Dr. Gideon 
A. Mantell, who, during the intervals of a laborious professional 
life, collected and described the remains of several strange 
extinct reptiles, and wrote a number of works on geology, such 
as served in his day to advance the science to which he was so 
enthusiastically devoted (see p. 159). 
One of the oldest of the Dinosaurs seems to be the 
