THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
15 
CHAPTER V. 
Genus Paramecostinus. 
Species I. 
II. 
III. 
IV. 
Tlapa/j.ttxtii, et outeoi/. Oblongis ossibus in palmipedibus. Animalium Prisci Orbis Lacertifor- 
mium, in Pago Street, Provinciae Somersetensis, cura et opere Thomae Hawkins in lucem 
prolatorum genus. 
Vertebris caudae viginti, apopbysi spinae bifida. Tab. XVII. 
Capite adancto, phalangibus palmipedum porrectis. Tab. XX. 
Rostro retuso, osse humeri curto. Tab. XXI. 
Rostro porrecto. Tab. XXIII. 
I NOW beg to present my Reader the most perfect of 
all the Annals belonging to Ichthyosauri. The labors 
by which we are enabled to recover and perpetuate them 
are not unlike those of Sir Humphrey Davy, over 
the papyri of the long entombed Cities of old Latium. 
Striving against the destructive weapons of Time, of fire, 
of earth, of air, and water, with the most delicate tests 
and a finished acumen, he was enabled to save the Hearts 
of some Cinerous Rolls of Herculaneum and Pompeii, so 
marvellously transmitted to these latter Days. In the 
unequal contest many an invaluable Record, over which 
the pale Scribe wasted his midnight lamp eighteen hun¬ 
dred years ago, little dreaming of the fate which, alas ! 
awaited them both, faded into Oblivion, with all its vainly 
coveted, and maybe more precious than ruby page. The 
rust of Time sometimes neutralizing itself, left a trophy 
for his antagonist, who often in his turn outdoing himself, 
surrendered spoils already won. 
The same Time which so ruthlessly assails the works 
and the monuments of man, was inspired with a zeal for 
the perpetuation of those which belong to the gods, really 
startling. The Vasty Cycles of Days since the Avatar of 
Time have been consumed by him but for this end. The 
Populations of the Old World seem to have lived that 
Time might solemnize their obsequies, and Stamp the 
forged Seal of Eternity upon their bones. The acts and 
Inscriptions of man dissolve into thin air, while the Races 
co-temporary with adolescent Time continue for our own 
and the years that are To Come. To touch the former 
with a breath is to blot them out, while the last are her¬ 
metically soldered down with stone, and coffined in the 
Centres of the Earth : so carefully guarded are they from 
rude and sacriligious hands, that to unrol the Cere¬ 
ments which bind them, it requires the most peculiar and 
subtle Genius of Skill, and fingers tipped each one with 
a most energetic soul. 
But Time has a limit set upon his work; the magnifi¬ 
cent Nature he is ever busy to perpetuate in all her rising, 
heaving, proud, but sinking, and dying forms, and as 
extremes often meet, so the Papyri and the Taninim have 
both lost their cases and externals, by the indisposition 
and contempt of Time on the one side, and his officious¬ 
ness on the other. 
In cutting the hard, intractible limestone from the 
involved Skeleton, how many muscles, nerves, nay, the 
Sensorium in which life couched and subsisted, is des¬ 
troyed, as effectually as the wisdom and wit of man for 
ever lost in those lamented Scrolls. True, there continue 
the traces, the stains of the once living flesh and blood, in 
the softened and discolored stone ; sometimes even the 
fibres of the more cartilaginous tissues faintly present 
themselves; and the stomachic fceculse not unfrequently 
remain, but the fashion and bodily shape is fled, leaving 
Moloch naked in all his deformity. 
II. The mere indices of these things, because they have a 
silent moral, are interesting for that very reason. The sub¬ 
lime discloses itself only in the silence of which we speak, 
when, by the most stupendous Efforts of Intellect, by the 
revivification of Worlds, by the inhabitation thereof of all 
the Creatures which the laboring Soul can re-articulate, 
we stand in a Presence which has not, nor ever shall have 
one sympathy with ourselves ; those Worlds, those anti¬ 
podal Populations, that Presence passionless, and silent 
dead; I say the instruments of a few bones verify a Sub¬ 
limity before which no man can stand unappalled. 
The present is so absolutely little when compared with 
the dread Past, that these Reliquiae derive an Attribute 
from that circumstance to our Faculties as absolutely in¬ 
finite. The sight expires in the distance, our minds are 
lost in the sweeping landscape, eternity for an horizon, 
and the god of the scene silence all. 
The Philosophic Ancients lived and acted under this 
impression, carrying it on to the Unknown Future, in 
which alone they could substantially realize a Personality. 
And in this mood did they achieve for themselves that 
Greatness which leave the Moderns pigmies, because we 
lack the mental dignity by which it was accomplished. 
For this reason, likewise, have the Moderns, although 
studious of forms, overlooked the Living Soul of Things, 
disenchanting Life, and encumbering the Earth with the 
most uninteresting Automatons imaginable. No Fawn, 
no Satyr now, no shy Nymph frequents the grove, no 
Dian courses the resounding hills ; all, all is unfrequent, 
and desolate all. Enthusiasm, without which there can 
be no sense of Truth, nor of fitness and beauty, seems as 
extinct as the Sea-Dragons which here inspire it: their 
strange eloquent Remains bespeak a Chord in our breast, 
which vibrates only to the Master Touch : the subtle and 
jealous gods of the vast Promontory of Time start at the 
well-known sound, They seize, They seize me wholly, 
