18 
THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
sunk through several thin laminae not unlike charred 
leaves, which we probed with the most intense concern. 
Curious suspicions of Mammae began to haunt us. We 
had hitherto supposed these Sea-dragons oviparous, and 
now we are tempted to think them mammal. The head 
here seems enlarged for the maternal dispositions, and if 
ever Dragon were destroyed in the hey-day of life, this is 
the one. 
The absence of embryo Shapes in the Pelvis of all 
known Taninim, and of the decisive marks near the Head 
adverted to, disprove nothing, as none other Skeleton ex¬ 
tant proves so vigorous an adultness, and so sudden a 
death as the one under our notice. The extremity of the 
upper snout, or rather the superior maxillaria, have been 
broken off as against a rock; but whatever the cause of 
death, it was instant, and whatever the laminae of which 
we speak, they are very strange. They also describe an 
outline singularly suspicious, reaching forward to the 
nostril, and describing outwardly a semi-circle of several 
inches. The attitude, if I may so express it, of the 
monster, is also precisely that one which would project 
the teats as described; the spongeous texture of which, 
gorged with lactiferous matter at the moment of sepulture, 
might have a chance of perpetuation in color, and manner 
herein found. 
If these great Sea-Dragons certainly suckled their 
impy brood, which these appearances incline us to be¬ 
lieve, Martin has barely attained, with all his stupendous 
Powers, the utter hideousness their own. These huge 
Dragons and their horrid Brood! Well may Berossus have 
journeyed to Babylon, where their dread Images were 
pictured on the Temple of Bel, by a Pencil inspired 
probably by Regal Adam himself. 
Thus Egypt not alone boasts a City of magicians with 
monsters changed into stone, exactly as they were found 
at the moment the petrific spell fell upon them. Creatures 
more weird than they, of a more ancient Ansinis are ours. 
In this Tanin especially, we confront Life everywhere; 
the head is instinct with life, the eye glowers in his socket, 
as if in the last agony, the spine twists to and fro, as 
though the nervous filaments still tortured its extremest 
parts, one foot digs into the ground, and the lashing tail 
writhes under the general throe, agitating for Death. 
His heart-strings were wrenched asunder so quickly, so 
rudely, that Death failed to stamp his Effigies upon the 
resisting bones, and so left them there at the bottom of 
the Seas, lifeful, despite himself, as we behold them here. 
Peradventure in a conceit, Time thereupon proceeded to 
mummify this Sea-dragon with more than peculiar Care; 
his cerecloths he fabricated in the strongest stone, and 
folded them up over him innumerable, as though expect¬ 
ing some at last recurring Cycle of years, when the 
wandering Ghost should return again to his inviolate 
home, and re-enact the life of which it had been before 
the crimson Stage. 
If not only the Pharaohs, but prophetic Time have been 
careful so much, in that hope of resuscitation in which 
universal Earth of old did verily comfort herself, how 
know ye, O lector ! that some God Galvani is not at hand 
to restore all things in accomplishment of the Primaeval 
Philosophy, before which our body, soul, and spirit bow- 
eth down evermore. “ Blessed and holy is he that hath 
part in the first Resurrection.” Revelations, xx. 6. 
SECT. III. 
Species III. Rostro retuso, osse humeri curto. Tab. XXI. 
Who but Scharf could so portray the naked bones of 
these Taninim, and seize their metaphysical aspect, so 
tenuous and shy! With an eye to the outward form, 
certes, and a sense known only to Genius of artistical 
dexterity manifested by a stroke, Scharf shall multiply 
these Sea-Dragons throughout Christendom, and embel¬ 
lish our Chronicles beyond all others. The mere colorist 
may heed the.plates nothing; men who expire with joy 
before Angelus Bonarota, Rafael, and Titian may scan 
them without a thought, and contemn them because they 
perceive not one thought in them. But the metaphysician 
who sees more in a square than its four sides, and who 
reasons to infinity with the figures which avail ordinary 
men only for dullest arithmetic, is above them. True, 
the Souls of the Masters were attuned to vocalities as 
lofty, and Ideas as grand as are those of whom we speak, 
if, indeed they were not of all men the greatest, and their 
works do follow them. 
Lithography, although a humble handmaid, is very 
useful to the fine arts, and more especially to Science. 
In geology, above all, she seizes the lithological charac¬ 
ter of fossil remains, and describes both it and the original 
themselves in the happiest manner. 
Covered with parasitic ostras and other shells, the 
Tanim, so beautifully drawn by Scharf in Plate XXI, was 
disinterred in the same year as was the last Skeleton. 
It was an extraordinary occurrence finding two Saurians 
in one year, the average of more than ten years yielding 
not one annually. And yet some of our most accomplished 
geologists believe that these Sea-Dragons are as the sand 
on the Sea-shore. “ Est modus in rebus! sunt certi denique 
fines.” 
The Street, as are all the neighbouring quarries of lias, 
commence with a thick bed of external Clay, verging into 
compact limestone, with marly partings. In the hardest, 
and most desireable Stratum of marl, sixteen feet deep, 
lay this magnificent Skeleton. In the act of casting 
away a piece, the laborer detected a section of the tail, 
and gave me immediate notice of the fact. The slab was 
replaced, the Skeleton traced out, the circumjacent lias 
squared, cut out of the pit, and translated to Sharpham 
the same day. 
The mark I usually strike at first is a pectoral paddle; 
next day a paddle came forth, attached to its Great Tribe, 
the Paramecostinus, but demanding a Family Name of its 
own. 
The Scapulae are in their place, the right humerus, 
radius, and ulna thrown upward, and all the phalanges 
scattered round about them. The Skull, filled by many 
of these dislocated bones, gradually emerges, an obtuse 
snout appears, both snout and head having a contour 
differing from all others in my Cabinets. The teeth are 
almost hidden by the intermaxillary and other bones, the 
head having fallen almost upon its vertex, so as to show 
much of its internal order inferiorly. The spine, obscured 
at first by many overlying ribs, yields; it breaks, but the 
