THE MOSASAURUS. 
21 I 
examining in the case of the Ptcrodactyle. We find the 
details of parts which, from their minuteness, should seem 
insignificant, acquiring great importance in such an investi¬ 
gation as we are now conducting ; they show, not less 
distinctly than the colossal limbs of the most gigantic 
quadrupeds, a numerical coincidence and a concurrence of 
proportions which it seems impossible to refer to the 
effect of accident, and which point out unity of purpose, 
and deliberate design, in some intelligent First Cause, 
from which they were all derived. We have seen that, 
whilst all the laws of existing organisation in the order 
of Lizards are rigidly maintained in the Pterodactyles ; still, 
as Lizards modified to move like Birds and Bats in the 
air, they received, in each part of their frame, a perfect 
adaptation do their state. We have dwelt more at length 
on the minutiae of their mechanism, because they convey 
us back into ages so exceedingly remote, and show that 
even in those distant eras, the same care of a common 
Creator, which we witness in the mechanism of our own 
bodies, and those of the myriads of inferior creatures that 
move around us, was extended to the structure of creatures 
that, at first sight, seem made up only of monstrosities.” 1 
Among the treasures of the Bucklandean Collection at 
Oxford is a cast of the Mosasaiirus. It bears an inscrip¬ 
tion on the edge of it, “ Given by the Museum of Natural 
History at Paris to Dr. Buckland,” and was presented to 
Buckland by Cuvier, who was then omnipotent at the 
French Museum, as an evidence of his friendship, and 
of the high esteem with which he regarded him. This 
relic possesses so curious a history, that it may be inter¬ 
esting to make a further extract from the Bridgewater 
Treatise concerning the history of the great animal of 
Maestricht. 
1 Bridgewater, vol. i., pp. 216-227. 
