THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
9 
CHAPTER II. 
OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS, ICHTHYOSAURI. 
T HE Historian of extinct Races of Animals, in the 
absence of comparison and other ordinary Rules 
upon which the Memoirs of Living Creatures are founded, 
not unfrequently confines himself to the merest field of 
Anatomy, beyond which lie the Provinces of Doubt, which 
we invade and forage at our peril. And the cold Philo¬ 
sophy of the moderns has been always careful to authen¬ 
ticate only those Works in which the plain Tuscan Style 
is observed, to the sacrifice of all ornament rhetorical 
and extrinsic; Nevertheless the most general favorite 
Authors in Natural History, from Aristotle to Buffon 
downward, are those of the most enthusiastic disposition, 
which enliven their writings and fill them with charms. 
These studied Nature with Genius, pencilling her most 
beautiful attitudes and colors, changeful and fleeting though 
they be; disdaining to carve and gash her to pieces for 
the mean sake of counting them when it was done. 
There is no subject, perhaps, within the vision of man 
about which so many fascinating objects revolve as ours, 
the Chronicle of the great Sea-dragons, which ruled the 
ridgy Deep, and sunk Empire and Life in the Profundity 
of pre-Adamic Times. The mere skeleton of a lost Genus, 
unsightly and incurious though it be apparently, is the 
precious and sole surviving Symbol of the most recondite 
Truths, and the Fulcrum of that ponderous Lever by which 
only we can upheave them from the Abyss of Ages. The 
bony Outline of an extinct Monster is a faded Cartoon of 
Nature, by which we study abstractest Beauties, analyze 
the most subtle Conceptions, and revivify Matter itself. 
It is also the figure of a Moral Quantity, by which, sub- 
limizing Time, we descry through his agitated Shadows 
the Elemental Order of Things in Heaven and in the 
Earth. Hence the vital interest which attaches to fossil 
Organic remains, and their incalculable value in the Scale 
of Metaphysics when found. They weigh the World in 
a balance, authenticate some of the most obscure passages 
of the antique Faith, and resuscitate Memories which 
could have otherwise no Resurrection. By the Egyptian 
Monoliths, the Temple Bel, and the consent of old Graecia, 
and the Papuan Guinea; by the Round Towers of Ire¬ 
land, and of India, and the Teuton Creed, we reach the 
Stones of Memorial of the Flood, whether at Stonehenge, 
or in Asia, or in America; by the Pyramids of Geezah, 
the Cyclopean Abodes, and the Carcasses of annihilated 
Carnivora, we ascend the ante-diluvial Stream of years 
even to Eden; by these extinct Dragons we navigate the 
pre-Adamite Seas to their very Margin, and look over the 
Edge of Matter into Chaos, lifting the Veil of Isis, meta¬ 
morphosed as gods. 
The physical relations wdiich subsisted in the departed 
Saurian Nations are no less signal than the abstract ones; 
fitted exclusively for the Sea, which in our time has only 
a fabulous Serpent, these Taninim prove that the great 
Principle of Unity established throughout all the Creatures 
of the Earth, has had other adaptations than those of 
Modern date. They perpetuate a Design no longer in 
use, show a Retractive Power in the Act of blotting out 
an Amalekite Race, and furnish data by which to estimate 
the Figures of the most distant Times, through all the 
Normal Velocities to which the Almighty destined them. 
With such extraordinary Properties, Palaeontologists have 
been much puzzled to assimilate these fossil Remains with 
the Classes of actual Beings. Half lizard, and half fish, 
the name Ichthyosauri expresses the words, but not the 
Idea which lurks within them. It is therefore only a 
conventional term, forced upon us by the rash attempt to 
ally Past and Present Races, living under two such alien 
Planets. 
In our Memoirs it was mete to honour the distinguished 
Philosophers who commenced the History of these enig¬ 
matical Tribes, as far as consisted with the original facts 
alone in our possession. We therefore continued it under 
their own Title, and, pursuing the principle upon which 
it set forth to its just conclusion, coined names for the 
several skeletons we had acquired. The old specific Cog¬ 
nomina, Tenuirostris, Platyodon, Intermedius, and Com¬ 
munis, were shown to be at variance, and quite inappli¬ 
cable to the Species meant by them, and others offered 
instead. These new Names were protested on account 
of their length : they sinned also against the Greek canon 
of one subject and one predicate. But since every known 
Saurian Remain falls into its place under our System, 
we shall retain it; hoping to obviate all objection by 
dropping the prepositional yap—paddle, leaving that to 
be always understood, and translating the Compounds 
Oligostinus, Polyostinus, Strongylostinus, and Parame- 
costinus of our memoirs from Specific to Generic terms. 
My seven perfect Skeletons, and the whole subsidiary 
Collection happily resolve themselves under these heads; 
and every other Relic that we have seen but help to con¬ 
firm the Rule. I appeal to the whole world if it be not 
better thus to distinguish them rather than by Proper 
Nouns, which at present mystify and disgrace every horn¬ 
book on Natural History. It is true that Linnseus, La- 
treille, and other worthies named certain Species after the 
discoverer, or after eminent Persons; but they did so only 
when the character was absolutely unknown. Could they 
have foreseen the flagrant abuses to which the example 
led, that within a century the exception would actually 
depose the Rule, that example would have been so strictly 
guarded, that there would be now no occasion to deplore 
a practice so injurious to the dignity of Science, and the 
Taste of the Age in which we live. I hardly anticipate the 
immediate abnegation of the jargon by which these Sauri 
have been hitherto recognized, but am content to abide 
the ordinary course of events, and even await the Coming 
Generation for that ingenuousness which may not be found 
in this. 
D 
