10 
THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
Further, we propose to restore these Lost Tribes to a 
Kingdom of their own. Belonging to ages so infinitely 
removed from ours, squared confessedly, to a Creation for 
ever past, and formed upon the most latent principles in 
Nature, with no surviving analogue, their numeral is 
unknown. The vertebral sub-regna, mammalia, aves, 
reptilia, et pisces, severally reject them. They are the 
Jews of Creation, alone in the actual World, and peculiar 
to the One by-gone. 
These unparalleled phenomena demand a Style and 
Title of their own. Throughout the Greek, and Latin, 
and all the derivative Languages living, float traditional 
notices of a supposed Chimsera, under the term Dragon. 
Backing this word through the more ancient Semitic 
Tongues, we come at last to its root in the most ancient of 
all, the blessed Hebrew. There, in the Inspired Annals 
of Earth, we read of the Gedolim Taninim, the Great Sea- 
Serpents, the frightful Dragons of Dead Times, the long- 
lost Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, of which we treat. 
Regnum. —Gedolim Taninim.— DJun D ,! m. 
Sub-Regnum. —Ichthyosaurus.— Itfus, et lau?o;. 
Genus. —Oligostinus.— omjgoj, et oo-teov. Paucis ossibus 
in palmipedibus. 
Species I. Dentibus formosis, membrana sclerotica e 
frustulis perpaucis, palmipedibus crassis. 
Tab. II. et VI. Fig. 1. 
II. Dentibus aduncis et crassis, membrana 
sclerotica multiplici, palmipedibus levio- 
ribus. Tab. III. et V. et VI. Figs. 2. et3. 
The huge Oligostinus of our former Memoirs, Plate III, 
substantiated the genus of our present theme. Until the 
discovery of that gigantic Skeleton, the paddles of Ich¬ 
thyosauri were remarkable for the number of their joints, 
if, indeed, we except the imperfect Rames of the Strongy- 
lostinus deposited in the Bristol Institution by Miss 
Anning. Prophetic I sought his vast quadrupedal oars, 
buried countless years under ten thousand tons of shale 
and stone, passing the bony keel and ribs out of which 
Time had so entirely shattered the Creature, its 
ancient Mariner and Occupant. The carcass, there a 
wreck, was stranded for ever; the oars which erst circum¬ 
navigated the round World, lay for ever idle, but their 
mission was not wholly at an end. Philosophy demanding 
other attributes beside that of size, whereby to classify 
things, the Paddles of this huge sea-beast instantly pre¬ 
sented themselves. The old misnomer Platyodon, framed 
upon an erroneous measure of the dental bones, which 
are much broader comparatively in the Communis than 
in the present Genus, gave place to features so entirely 
new, and it was generally admitted that a better generic 
Rule than the paddles offered could not be found. 
The length of the Names published in the Memoirs 
alluded to, and the heretical doctrine which maintained 
them, alone I presume lost the support of that Great Geo¬ 
logical Chief, without whose Countenance no clansman 
should hazard a step beyond his ranks. 
In presuming to name Professor Buckland, I avail 
myself of the opportunity to plead that the objection was 
but the Purgatory which every New System in some or 
another Shape is doomed to pass. And it required no 
little perseverance and good fortune to test and reduce 
these names to the Classic Rule and Example which, 
here, now, I submit for my reader’s approval. 
And in reference to Specific distinctions, these Remains, 
wrapt in the Grave-clothes of many Ages, come before 
us inscribed like the mummies of old iEgyptus, in a lan¬ 
guage abandoned evermore. The pre-human, like the 
latter Pharaohs, have perpetuated only the letter of their 
once dread Persons, in guises of stone. In vain did 
Belzoni conjecture after the personality of the gorgeous 
Sarcophagus which bears his name; and we as vainly 
strive after those physiological distinctions by which 
Natural Philosophy has separated and arranged each in 
his place the Orders of living creatures; so that, forsaken 
of the Common Aids, if ever a Scribe be justified in 
treating a Foreign thing originally, these flinty Images 
of extinct Tongues present the best occasion. The 
several Relics which shall chance be found must there¬ 
fore necessarily fix the name of the party who sets them 
forth : The golden Signet of Phraah, discovered by 
Salt, passing to the hand of Mr. Sams, was shown me by 
that worthy Traveller as “ Salt’s and the Spoils gathered 
, by Miss Anning, resolving themselves into our four Ge¬ 
nera, shall still rejoice in that Name to the last. We may 
Map out the broad Outline of these defunct Races, but 
the detail must chiefly consist in those accidents of 
persons by whom they are torn from Oblivion, and be¬ 
queathed to the Generations that follow. It will be 
seen eventually how absurd it were to Latinize the Names 
of those concerned in the rescue. 
We proceed to the Oligostinus in Plate II. The mi¬ 
nute description in our Memoirs of Ichthyosauri and 
Plesiosauri, of the sole Oligostinus then extant, Plate III, 
renders another anatomical precis here unnecessary, the 
build of both skeletons of the two plates being as one; 
they are due also to the same celebrated Lyme, and were 
discovered by Miss Anning, to whom that celebrity is en¬ 
tirely due. 
But there are many characteristic deviations which 
require Notice, beside the valuable fact that whereas the 
latter lies abdominally flat in the Lias, the first is seen 
thrown upon his side. We are thus favoured with a view 
of the Sclerotica, and a much more striking Contour of the 
head, in which still lurketh the ghost of a grim and 
greedy thing. The hyoides are also in their actual place, 
which was before Conjectural, and the teeth are much 
better shown. 
The position of the Skeleton in Plate III, conceals the 
form of the Eye, which is so perfect in his Kindred Head 
of Plate V. The present Oligostinus boasts a no less 
complete optical shield; but it is composed of fewer 
pieces than the former, an indubitable evidence of a dif¬ 
ferent Species, and one of the numberless reasons for our 
republication of some of the plates used in our former work. 
This unlooked-for means serves to identify the head in the 
British Museum, published by Sir Everard Home, in the 
Phil. Trans. 1814, which has an eye framed like that 
of Plate V. Dr. Buckland remarks in his celebrated 
“ Bridgewater Treatise,” that “ in living animals these bony 
plates are fixed in the exterior or sclerotic coat of the eye, 
and vary its scope of action, by altering the convexity of 
the Cornea: by their retraction they press forward the 
front of the eye, and convert it into a microscope; in re¬ 
suming their position, when the eye is at rest, they con¬ 
vert it into a telescope.” Perhaps also, as in the Cha¬ 
meleon, the bodily skin of the Taninim was glazed over 
part of the sclerotic, leaving an aperture in the centre, di¬ 
rected with the pupil at pleasure to any point, without 
moving the head, which was so carefully braced to the 
dorsum and chest, that it could have had but little motion 
