16 
THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
and if the oracle, O Reader, be ambiguous, blame thy 
Fortune in escaping the Pythonic furor, with its extatic 
but exhausting delirium, its shiver, and wild excentric 
fate. 
Io. Io. Io. 
A long grey Cloud in the far-west, covering many a Rood. 
A Golden Sun Autumnal. 
Golden Islands in the Deep Skies. 
O my voluptuous heart, gushing soft music. 
O life ! so profoundly felt. 
Heaven above, around, beneath, Eternal. 
See ! in the long grey Cloud a Tanin in the Empyreal Ocean. 
Suns, Systems, Time and Eternity cluster around him. 
Io. Io. Chase him on Wings of the Mighty Spheres. 
* * * 
Flee away, Time. I follow. 
Both fledged to the same Stroke. 
Across Desart Skies. 
A million years. A million Essays of Wing. Each from one 
Vortice to another. 
O weary Wings, and Space dreary ever. 
Sea-Dragons! Chase them in the Expanse of Heavens. 
Wild Lucifer Spirits our Companions through all Immensity. 
The Spirit of Prophecy is not dead. Nor do I consider 
it at all remarkable, that these waking dreams preceded 
the discovery of two Taninim, about to be introduced. 
A subject must be esteemed for its consequences, and who 
can sum the Legions of thoughts, which these Sea- 
dragons evoked, and shall yet evoke in our own and 
many other breasts? Were we to abandon ourselves to 
all the more occult influences of the mind, it would be 
elevated to a pitch of sensibility, and an acuteness of 
perception unspeakable; nor do I shun to avow a habit, 
which raises one above the mortal conditions of Earth, if 
indulged in a right Royal Heart. And what, quotha, 
are the Skeletons which interest us so much, stripped 
of the habiliments of Eld; or what is Kingly Power 
without the symbols, or the Heavens themselves without 
the Dominions which rule them withal. 
But we must refer our reader to the Paramecostinus 
of Plate XVII, which supersedes a former one, (Vide Me¬ 
moirs,) rejected because the right paddle of the subject it 
was taken from is improperly reversed. This beautiful 
Skeleton was found at our neighbouring Street, and the 
following extracts, copied from my note-book, explain 
the attendant circumstances. 
“ 1835, June. John Steel announced a fossil, lying in 
Mogs quarry, in the thick marl, twenty-feet from the 
surface. 
T 
“ Proceeding to extricate it, we ascertained that the tail 
was covered by one of the facets of the quarry, which 
cannot be removed for some months. 
“ John Mog, personally, not unlike iEsop, hobbling into 
the pit, and touching his hat with a useful crutch, re¬ 
quested to speak. “ Your Sarvant, Zir, how much be I to 
have vor the faussil V 
“ ‘You know, John, I always give the master one half, 
and his man who chances to find it the other.’ 
“‘Very well, Zir.—Thank’ee, Zir.’ 
“‘We must leave the tail here, until we work out the 
ground.’ 
“ ‘Yes, Zir.’ 
“Thursday, Friday, Tuesday. Dissected the Skull and 
Snout, laying bare an eye deeply sunk in his socket; and 
identifying it with the Paramecostinus in the British 
Museum, by the shape and number of the teeth, the well- 
defined nasal Foramen, and the general outline. 
“Wednesday. The Cervix, if indeed Ichthyosauri have 
any, rather the Atlas, axis, and a few succeeding verte¬ 
brae, are in their right place: but the sub-vertebral 
wedges are overlaid. 
“ Thursday. Encountered a stubborn group of the 
marginal rays of the anterior paddles, heretofore thought 
to be spines of a Cidaris, which I greatly regretted, but 
was obliged to sacrifice. 
“ Friday. Developed that beautiful pectoral paddle. 
“ Monday, Tuesday, to Saturday. The Seventh and 
five succeeding dorsal vertebrae are twisted round, pre¬ 
senting the spinous fossae, although luckily the apophy¬ 
ses themselves continue almost in their proper place : the 
entire twelve are but little distinguished from one another 
in shape, but they decrease somewhat in size receding 
from the occiput. The Sternal arch and the whole sub¬ 
sidiary Apparatus is remarkably strong, and perfect. 
“July, Tuesday, Wednesday. The anterior long ribs 
dive right through the matrix, an unusual accident ; and 
the phalanges of the left paddle are dislocated by the 
superincumbent pressure which occasioned it. 
“Saturday, Monday, to Wednesday night. Now then 
the Spine enlarges, the apophyses spread, the ribs resume 
their order, and chocolate colored laminae indicate the once 
abdominal fluids. The gradually emerging beauty of this 
Tanin so possesses me, that I shall order my lamp, to enjoy 
another sight of it before I go to bed. 
“Thursday. Fortieth vertebra, forty first, second, 
third, superb ! 
“ Friday and Saturday. There are the posterior paddles, 
like all that preceded them, perfect. The Pelvis main¬ 
tains its articulation, as did the Sternum before it. Here 
also the spine acquires its maximum long diameter.” 
The quarry having been at length worked farther back, 
the journal continues, 
“ Oct. Friday. An entirely new feature presents itself: 
the receding caudal Vertebrae disclose double spinous 
apophyses, mounting the twenty bones anterior to the first 
break of the tail. No suspicion of any such thing ever 
occurred to us; no Ichthyosaurus ever indicated such a 
fact before. All the other individuals known have these 
spines a little thicker perhaps than any of their relations, 
but the difference leads to a mere nothing. Here we 
have bifid spines, for what purpose ? to support a fin ? 
Now a fin comprises, besides its erector and compressor 
muscles, at least a cartilaginous, if not an osseous frame, 
upon which to exercise them: other more perishable 
substances than cartilage have left marks behind them in 
this very marl. In one or two Saurians we have even 
fancied that their skin, their mere outline of Form were 
indicated, if not to the eye, to that manual touch with 
which they certainly came in contact. ” 
In the elaboration of several tails we have been unable 
to detect the least proof of a fin. Nothing due to our 
chisel ever advanced pretension to any such member. 
The multiplication of these apophyses then was mani¬ 
festly appointed as a balance, the cushion of flesh which 
clothed them assisting its consequence, mounted probably 
by a cuticular fringe, which may have been lengthened and 
widened out upon the tail, as shown in our frontispiece. 
We have remarked the nearly equal size of the first 
twelve vertebrae of the back. In the several genera, nay, 
even in all other Species, it will most probably be found, 
that the so-called neck is more attenuated than that of the 
