256 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. Vlll. 
that, at the same time, he did not feel sufficiently 
convinced to recognise those principles, afterwards 
expounded by Charles Darwin, which his own 
genius and capacity for work could not fail to have 
furthered. 
In 1845 Owen first described the remains of 
dicynodonts^ from South Africa. These creatures 
were a new tribe of sauria, the remains of which 
have since been found in England, Scotland, and 
India, and have proved of peculiar value in deter- 
mining critical points with regard to the age of 
certain rocks. 
By the end of ihe year his ‘Descriptive Cata- 
logue of Fossil Mammalia and Aves preserved 
in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons ’ 
had also appeared. One cannot but be astounded 
at the amount of work which he got through dur- 
ing the years 1844-46 ; it was clearly a period of 
excessive activity with him, and the wonder is 
that he retained his health through it all. We 
see from his wife’s diary that a great part of this 
work was done late at night. 
^Jamiary 7. — R. busy till nearly three in the 
morning writing paper for the Geological Society 
to-morrow on Dicynodon.’ 
In a note to Laurillard written a few months 
later, referring to the ‘ age of the rocks containing 
the dicynodonts,’ Owen says : ‘ I do not believe 
“‘On Reptilian Fossils {Trans. Geol. Soc.,yo\.\\\.,'2xA 
(Dicynodon) from S. Africa,’ series, 1845). 
