THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
] 7 
Person now before us. His Cranium is very enlarged, as 
is also the other fore-part of the Skeleton. His aspect is 
stiff, fore-right, and heavy, demanding a compensation of 
some decided sort. These double processes afford it at 
once, while the whole tail, auxiliary by its just propor¬ 
tions of chevron and other joints, refute the idea of a 
proper fin, by the equilibrium in which it holds the de¬ 
pendant whole, as well as supersede the necessity of one 
by the curious rudder-like provision which we have de¬ 
monstrated in it before. 
Here then we have another Ichthyosaurus with a novelty 
of contrivance peculiarly his own; so marked a difference 
is itself sufficient to particularize him from all others upon 
Record. There are individuals which at first blush ap¬ 
pear to be the same identical Species, disproved by this 
very singularity. In truth, it has never occurred to us to 
find a Saurian undistinguished from any preceding one, 
either in the number or figure of certain bones. A Species 
starts forth in every new individual, or at least differences, 
which belong, no doubt, occasionally to the Sexes them¬ 
selves, about which we can of course only speculate. 
The skeleton before us is altogether unique: he is the 
longest ever found in Somerset, and lacks not one the 
least joint: His color remains unchanged by the lapse of 
many Ages; his Animus survives in his attitude, dis¬ 
coursing most eloquent things. The Profound, the Soli¬ 
tary Seas he haunted, the appetites he accomplished, the 
brassy Skies he saw, the Soulless World he ruled, the 
unjoyous Times, the unchecked lusts this dragon knew, 
crowd their Memories in his ribbed boat, which, track¬ 
ing the wide Oceans of years, lands them at last on our 
Modern Shores. 
The fleeting Generations of Men shall pass away and 
be forgotten, while the Lessons which these awful retro¬ 
spections teach them will continue until the absorption of 
all Truth by the ONE, innate, adorable Being, the Al¬ 
mighty Lord and Father of us all. 
SECT. II. 
Species II. Capite adancto, phalangibus palmipedum porrectis. 
Tab. XX. 
The Dragon to which we now solicit attention, Plate 
XX, fulfilled the second Dream of the god : whether 
Pythius, or the one within us, or whatever god he be, the 
promise was fulfilled. 
It is but the paralysis of a single nerve which shuts us 
out from the Real World, leaving us at the mercy of the 
wingless Sciolists, who know not where to find its thres¬ 
hold. If we could recur to our original Selves, we should 
recover an Innateness identified with the whole Universe 
of Mind, and Magazines of Processes reaching to the very 
Limits of all created Intelligences. 
The prepossessions, the instincts of our Soul, are faint 
and dubious by reason of a disease which many of the 
later Doctors have sorely misunderstood. They have 
sought excuses in the Constitution instead of in the 
Crime of Things; and forgetting they have no Diploma, 
prescribe, in the old Pagan Formula, only nostrums to a 
credulous Race. 
The Scriptores of History and of Heaven, which, vindi¬ 
cating Jehovah, set forth the Evil under which Creation 
groans, are put aside because they belie the Vanities of a 
Fickle Age. The grand Powers of Thought conferred 
upon primal Adam, and propagated through his descen¬ 
dants, in their several, but alas ! waning degrees, are 
denied to the Fathers of Nations, and in pretence appro¬ 
priated by a Posterity of which they are ashamed. Genesis 
first, because it insists upon the to us super-human pro¬ 
portions of Adam, and the qualifications of the first-born 
men, in Sciences whose names even are now unknown, no 
less than in all those lower Mechanical and Material arts 
about which the Moderns plume themselves so absurdly; 
and all History is next declined, which, treating of demi¬ 
gods, and of their Monuments, refute the vain glory of 
our degenerate Times. 
Utility is the European watchword, while but few 
know the use of anything whatever in alliance with the 
higher Interests of Mankind. The most common but in¬ 
valuable instruments of the Adamities for Communion 
with the glorious Worlds, from which we are cut so en¬ 
tirely off, are the least valued of any which they have 
bequeathed. They have rusted so long, that to “ The 
Masses”theyare almost irrevocably lost; while the Socrates 
and his attendant Famulus, which sometimes appear, 
encounter the scornful finger, and the bitter hemlock of 
Society at every turn. 
The sub-stratum of visible Man conceals ores of Virtues 
beyond price, which are, nevertheless, overlooked and con¬ 
temned by the mean Spirit of the present Hour. Those 
who diligently study and work them out, enrich themselves 
thereby, while the varieties of “ Jaspar, Sapphire, Chal¬ 
cedony, Emerald, Sardonyx, Sardius, Chrysolite, Beryl, 
Topaz, Chrysoprasus, Jacinth, and Amethyst, and Pearl, 
and pure Gold,” are each one of them sufficient for him 
who happily obtains it. 
This Tanin then, of which we so caught the projecting 
Shadows, was found at Street. In the bottom of the quarry 
eighteen feet deep, in a thick bed of Lias Stone, there it 
lay long buried and lost. But the Fates brought a work¬ 
man to the spot, showed him a glimpse of the Dragon, of 
which they had taken such care, and directed Mercury to 
our door. 
i 
How did the poor man’s heart flutter, responsive to 
mine audible own, when first I saw the tomb in which 
my Treasure lay hid. Poor simpleton; his quivered 
harshly to the blow of Dives, ours vibrated to an 
Angel hand. Would we realize a Picture of a pure Idea 
and its antipode, there it stood ; a storm incited by Igno¬ 
rance and want, resolving itself into a shower of pelf, on 
the one hand ; a Hurricane of thought, personless and 
Ideal sweeping joyfully, on the other, originating in one 
and the same point, the Dragon. 
Specifically this Ichthyosaurus differs from any other 
in our Collection of this Genus, the most on account of 
his head; while the paddles are distinguished from those 
of the preceding Skeleton by more elongated phalanges. 
The tail presents the general Rule in all its force, while 
the arc it describes is apparently less significant than the 
break, and sudden twist which mark the Polyostinus of 
Plate VII. 
The space between the Skull and the left paddle pre¬ 
serves traces of an animal matter so remarkable, that I 
have no doubt the whole abdominal contents were poured 
forth upon that spot; the moment our chisel came there, it 
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