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GEOLOGY AND INHABITANTS 
 
 OP THE 
 
 ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 DESCRIBED BY 
 
 EICHAED OWEN, E.E.S. 
 
 THE ANIMALS CONSTRUCTED BY B. W. HAWKINS, F.G.S. 
 
 CEYSTAL PALACE LIBEAEY, 
 
 AND 
 
 BRADBURY & EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET, LONDON. 
 1854. 
 

 
 
 BRADBURY AND EVANS, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE CRYSTAI TALACK COMPANY, 
 WIHTRP RIARS. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION.5 
 
 THE SECONDARY ISLAND. 7 
 
 CHALK FORMATION.9 
 
 THE MOSASAURUS. 10 
 
 THE PTERODACTYLE. . . . . . . . .11 
 
 WEALDEN FORMATION.14 
 
 THE IGUANODON . . . . . . . . .14 
 
 THE HYLJSOSAURUS . . . . . . . . . 17 
 
 OOLITE FORMATION.19 
 
 THE MEGALOSAURUS . . . . . . . . . 19 
 
 PTERODACTYLES OF THE OOLITE . . . . . .22 
 
 TELEOSAURUS. 22 
 
 LIAS FORMATION.25 
 
 ENALIOSATJRIA. 25 
 
 THE ICHTHYOSAURUS. 25 
 
 ICHTHYOSAURUS PLATYODON . . . . . . . 29 
 
 ICHTHYOSAURUS TENUIROSTRIS. 30 
 
 ICHTHYOSAURUS COMMUNIS . . . . . . . . 30 
 
 PLESIOSAURUS ......... 31 
 
 PLESIOSAURUS MACROCEPHALUS. 31 
 
 PLESIOSAURUS DOLICHODEIRUS. 32 
 
 PLESIOSAURUS HAWKINSII . . . . . . . . 33 
 
 NEW RED SANDSTONE.35 
 
 BATRACHIA . . . . . . . . . . 35 
 
 LABYRINTHODON SALAMANDROIDES . . . . , .36 
 
 LABYRINTHODON PACHYGNATHUS . . . . . . . 38 
 
 DICYNODON. 38 
 

GEOLOGY AND INHABITANTS OE THE 
 ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Before entering upon a description of tlie restorations of the 
 Extinct Animals, placed on the Geological Islands in the great 
 Lake, a brief account may be premised of the principles and pro¬ 
 cedures adopted in carrying out this attempt to present a view of 
 part of the animal creation of former periods in the earth’s 
 history. 
 
 Those extinct animals were first selected of which the entire, 
 or nearly entire, skeleton had been exhumed in a fossil state. To 
 accurate drawings of these skeletons an outline of the form of the 
 entire animal was added, according to the proportions and rela¬ 
 tions of the skin and adjacent soft parts to the superficial parts of 
 the skeleton, as yielded by those parts in the nearest allied living 
 
6 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 animals. From such an outline of the exterior, Mr. Waterhouse 
 Hawkins prepared at once a miniature model form in clay. 
 
 This model was rigorously tested in regard to all its proportions 
 with those exhibited by the bones and joints of the skeleton of 
 the fossil animal, and the required alterations and modifications 
 were successively made, after repeated examinations and com¬ 
 parisons, until the result proved satisfactory. 
 
 The next step was to make a copy in clay of the proof model, 
 of the natural size of the extinct animal : the largest known 
 fossil bone, or part, of such animal being taken as the standard 
 according to which the proportions of the rest of the body were 
 calculated agreeably with those of the best preserved and most 
 perfect skeleton. The model of the full size of the extinct animal 
 having been thus prepared, and corrected by renewed comparisons 
 with the original fossil remains, a mould of it was prepared, and a 
 cast taken from this mould, in the material of which the restora¬ 
 tions, now exposed to view, are composed. 
 
 There are some very rare and remarkable extinct animals of 
 which only the fossil skull and a few detached bones of the 
 skeleton have been discovered : in most of these the restoration 
 has been limited to the head, as, for example, in the case of the 
 Mosasaurus ; and only in two instances—those, viz., of the 
 Labyrinthodon and Dicynodon—has Mr. Hawkins taken upon 
 himself the responsibility of adding the trunk to the known 
 characters of the head, such addition having been made to illus¬ 
 trate the general affinities and nature of the fossil, and the kind 
 of limbs required to produce the impressions of the footprints, 
 where these have been detected and preserved in the petrified 
 sands of the ancient sea-shores trodden by these strange forms of 
 the Reptilian class. 
 
 With regard to the hair, the scales, the scutes, and other modi¬ 
 fications of the skin, in some instances the analogy of the nearest 
 allied living forms of animals has been the only guide ; in a few 
 instances, as in that of the Ichthyosaurus, portions of the petri¬ 
 fied integument have been fortunately preserved, and have guided 
 the artist most satisfactorily in the restoration of the skin and soft 
 parts of the fins ; in the case of other reptiles, the bony plates, 
 spines, and scutes have been discovered in a fossil state, and have 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 7 
 
 been scrupulously copied in the attempt to restore the peculiar 
 tegumentary features of the extinct reptiles, as e. g. in the 
 Hylseosaurus. 
 
 In every stage of this difficult, and by some it may be thought, 
 perhaps, too bold, attempt to reproduce and present to human 
 gaze and contemplation the forms of animal life that have success¬ 
 ively flourished during former geological phases of time, and have 
 passed away long ages prior to the creation of man, the writer of 
 the following brief notice of the nature and affinities of the 
 animals so restored feels it a duty, as it is a high gratification to 
 him, to testify to the intelligence, zeal, and peculiar artistic skill 
 by which his ideas and suggestions have been realised and carried 
 out by the talented director of the fossil department, Mr. Water- 
 house Hawkins. Without the combination of science, art, and 
 manual skill, happily combined in that gentleman, the present 
 department of the Instructive Illustrations at the Crystal Palace 
 could not have been realised. 
 
 The Secondary Island. 
 
 The most cursory observation of the surface of the earth 
 shows that it is composed of distinct substances, such as clay, 
 chalk, lias, limestone, coal, slate, sandstone, &c. ; and a study 
 of such substances, their relative position and contents, has 
 led to the conviction that these external parts of the earth have 
 acquired their present condition gradually, under a variety of 
 circumstances, and at successive periods, during which many races 
 of animated beings, distinct both from those of other periods and 
 from those now living, have successively peopled the land and the 
 waters ; the remains of these creatures being found buried in 
 many of the layers or masses of mineral substances, forming the 
 crust of the earth. 
 
 The object of the Islands in the Geological Lake is to demon¬ 
 strate the order of succession, or superposition, of these layers or 
 strata, and to exhibit, restored in form and bulk, as when they 
 lived, the most remarkable and characteristic of the extinct 
 animals and plants of each stratum. 
 
 The series of mineral substances and strata represented in the 
 
8 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 smaller island have been called by geologists “secondary formations,” 
 because they lie between an older series termed “primary,” and 
 a newer series termed “ tertiary : ” the term “ formation ” meaning 
 any assemblage of rocks or layers which have some character in 
 common, whether of origin, age, or composition.* 
 
 Following the secondary formations as they descend in the 
 earth, or succeed each other from above downwards, and as they 
 are shown, obliquely tilted up out of their original level position 
 from left to right, in the Secondary Island, they consist : 1st, of 
 the Chalk or Cretaceous group ; 2nd, the Wealden; 3rd, the 
 Oolite ; 4th, the Lias ; and 5th, the New Red Sandstone. 
 
 Lyell, “ Manual of Elementary Geology. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WOULD. 
 
 9 
 
 THE CHALK. 
 
 The chalk formations or u cretaceous group of beds” include 
 strata of various mineral substances ; but the white chalk which 
 forms the cliffs of Dover and the adjoining coasts, and the downs 
 and chalk quarries of the South of England, is the chief and most 
 characteristic formation. Chalk, immense as are the masses in 
 which it has been deposited, owes its origin to living actions ; 
 every particle of it once circulated in the blood or vital juices of 
 certain species of animals, or of a few plants, that lived in the 
 seas of the secondary period of geological time. White chalk con¬ 
 sists of carbonate of lime, and is the result of the decomposition 
 chiefly of coral-animals {Madrepores, MiUepores, Flustra, Cellepora, 
 &c.), of sea-urchins {Echini), and of shell-fishes {Testacea), and of 
 the mechanical reduction, pounding, and grinding of their shells. 
 Such chalk-forming beings still exist, and continue their operations 
 in various parts of the ocean, especially in the construction of 
 coral reefs and islands. 
 
 Every river that traverses a limestone district carries into the 
 sea a certain proportion of caustic lime in solution : the ill effects 
 of the accumulation of this mineral are neutralised by the power 
 allotted to the above-cited sea-animals to absorb the lime, combine 
 it with carbonic-acid, and precipitate or deposit it in the condition 
 of insoluble chalk, or carbonate of lime. 
 
 The entire cretaceous series includes from above downwards : 
 
 Maestricht beds of yellowish chalk. 
 
 Upper white chalk with flints. 
 
 Lower white chalk without flints. 
 
 Upper green-sand. 
 
 Gault. 
 
 Lower green-sand and Kentish rag. 
 
 The best known and most characteristic large extinct animal of 
 the chalk formations is chiefly found in the uppermost and most 
 recent division, and is called 
 
10 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 No. 1.— The Mosasaukus. 
 
 (Mosasaurus Hoffmanni , Hoffmann’s Mosasaur.) 
 
 Of this animal almost the entire skull has been discovered, but 
 not sufficient of the rest of the skeleton to guide to a complete 
 restoration of the animal. The head only, therefore, is shown, of 
 the natural size, at the left extremity of the Secondary Island. 
 
 The first or generic name of this animal is derived from the 
 locality, Maestricht, on the river Meuse (Lat. Mosa), in Germany, 
 where its remains have been chiefly discovered, and from the 
 Greek word sauros, a lizard, to which tribe of animals it belongs. 
 Its second name refers to its discoverer, Dr. Hoffmann, of Maes¬ 
 tricht, surgeon to the forces quartered in that town in 1780. 
 This gentleman had occupied his leisure by the collection of the 
 fossils from the quarries which were then worked to a great extent 
 at Maestricht for a kind of yellowish stone of a chalky nature, 
 and belonging to the most recent of the secondary class of forma¬ 
 tions in geology. In one of the great subterraneous quarries or 
 galleries, about five hundred paces from the entrance, and ninety 
 feet below the surface, the quarrymen exposed part of the skull of 
 the Mosasaurus, in a block of stone which they were engaged in 
 detaching. On this discovery they suspended their work, and 
 went to inform Dr. Hoffmann, who, on arriving at the spot, 
 directed the operations of the men, so that they worked out the 
 block without injury to the fossil; and the doctor then, with his 
 own hands, cleared away the matrix and exposed the jaws and 
 teeth, casts of which are shown in the cretaceous rock of the 
 Island. 
 
 This fine specimen, which Hoffmann had added with so much 
 pains and care to his collection, soon, however, became a source 
 of chagrin to him. One of the canons of the cathedral at 
 Maestricht, who owned the surface of the soil beneath which was 
 the quarry whence the fossil had been obtained, when the fame 
 of the specimen reached him, pleaded certain feudal rights to 
 it. Hoffmann resisted, and the canon went to law. The 
 Chapter supported the canon, and the decree ultimately went 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WOELD. 
 
 II 
 
 against the poor surgeon, who lost both his specimen and his 
 money—being made to pay the costs of the action. The canon 
 did not, however, long enjoy possession of the unique specimen. 
 When the French army bombarded Maestricht in 1795, directions 
 were given to spare the suburb in which the famous fossil was 
 known to be preserved ; and after the capitulation of the town it 
 was seized and borne off in triumph. The specimen has since 
 remained in the museum of the Garden of Plants at Paris. 
 
 This skull of the Mosasaurus measures four and a half feet 
 long and two and a half feet wide. The large pointed teeth on the 
 jaws are very conspicuous ; but, in addition to these, the gigantic 
 reptile had teeth on a bone of the roof of the mouth (the pterygoid), 
 like some of the modern lizards. The entire length of the animal has 
 been estimated at about thirty feet. It is conjectured to have been 
 able to swim well, and to have frequented the sea in quest of prey: 
 its dentition shows its predatory and carnivorous character, and its 
 remains have hitherto been met with exclusively in the chalk forma¬ 
 tions. Besides the specimens from St. Peter’s Mount, Maestricht, 
 of which the above-described skull is the most remarkable, fossil 
 bones and teeth of the Mosasaurus have been found in the chalk 
 of Kent, and in the green-sand—a member of the cretaceous 
 series—in New Jersey, United States of America. No animal 
 like the Mosasaurus is now known to exist. 
 
 Nos. 2 & 3.— The Pteiiodactyle. 
 
 Nos. 2 and 3 are restorations of a flying reptile or dragon, 
 called Pterodactyle, from the Greek words pteron , a wing, and 
 dadylos , a finger ; because the wings are mainly supported by the 
 outer finger, enormously lengthened and of proportionate strength, 
 which, nevertheless, answers to the little finger of the human hand. 
 The wings consisted of folds of skin, like the leather wings of the 
 bat; and the Pterodactyles were covered with scales, not with 
 feathers : the head, though somewhat resembling in shape that of 
 a bird, and supported on a long and slender neck, was provided 
 with long jaws, armed with teeth ; and altogether the structure of 
 these extinct members of the reptilian class is such as to rank 
 them amongst the most extraordinary of all the creatures yet dis¬ 
 covered in the ruins of the ancient earth. 
 
12 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 Remains of the Pterodactyle were first discovered, in 1784, by 
 Prof. Collini, in the lithographic slate of Aichstadt, in Germany, 
 which slate is a member of the oolitic formations : the species so dis¬ 
 covered was at first mistaken for a bird, and afterwards supposed 
 to be a large kind of bat, but had its true reptilian nature demon¬ 
 strated by Baron Cuvier, by whom it was called the Pterodactylus 
 longirostris , or Long-beaked Pterodactyle : it was about the size of a 
 curlew. 
 
 A somewhat larger species—the Pterodactylus macronyx, or 
 Long-clawed Pterodactyle—was subsequently discovered by the 
 Rev. Dr. Buckland, in the lias formation of Lyme Regis : its 
 wings, when expanded, must have been about four feet from tip to 
 tip. The smallest known species—the Pterodactylus brevirostris, or 
 Short-beaked Pterodactyle—was discovered in the lithographic slate 
 at Solenhofen, Germany, and has been described by Professor 
 Soemmering. 
 
 Remains of the largest known kinds of Pterodactyle have been 
 discovered more recently in chalk-pits, at Burham, in Kent. The 
 skull of one of these species—the Pterodactylus Cuvieri —was about 
 twenty inches in length, and the animal was upborne on an ex¬ 
 panse of wing of probably not less than eighteen feet from tip to 
 tip. The restored specimen of this species is numbered 3. 
 
 A second very large kind of Pterodactyle—the Pterodactylus 
 compressirostris , or Thin-beaked Pterodactyle—had a head from 
 fourteen to sixteen inches in length, and an expanse of wing, from 
 tip to tip, of fifteen feet. The remains of this species have also 
 been found in the chalk of Kent. From the same formation and 
 locality a third large kind of Pterodactyle, although inferior in 
 size to the two foregoing, has been discovered, called the Pterodac¬ 
 tylus conirostris , and also—until the foregoing larger kinds were 
 discovered— Pterodactylus giganteus. The long, sharp, conical teeth 
 in the jaws of the Pterodactyles indicate them to have preyed upon 
 other living animals ; their eyes were large, as if to enable them to 
 fly by night. From their wings projected fingers, terminated by 
 long curved claws, and forming a powerful paw, wherewith the 
 animal was enabled to creep and climb, or suspend itself from trees. 
 It is probable, also, that the Pterodactyles had the power of swim¬ 
 ming ; some kinds, e.g ., the Pterodactylus Gemmingi , had a long 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 l; 
 
 and stiff tail. <e Thus,” writes Dr. Buckland, “ like Milton’s 
 Fiend, all qualified for all services and all elements, the creature 
 was a fit companion for the kindred reptiles that swarmed in the 
 seas, or crawled on the shores of a turbulent planet. 
 
 ‘ The Fiend, 
 
 O’er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, 
 
 With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, 
 
 And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.’ 
 
 Paradise Lost, Book II.” 
 
14 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 THE WEALDEN. 
 
 The Wealden is a mass of petrified clay, sand, and sand¬ 
 stone, deposited from the fresh or brackish water of probably some 
 great estuary, and extending over parts of the counties of Kent, 
 Surrey, and Sussex. This fresh-water formation derives its name 
 from the “ Weald” or “ Wold” of Kent, where it was first geolo¬ 
 gically studied, and where it is exposed by the removal of the 
 chalk, which covers or overlies it, in other parts of the South of 
 England. 
 
 The Wealden is divided into three groups of strata, which suc¬ 
 ceed each other in the following descending order :— 
 
 1st. AVeald Clay, sometimes including thin beds of sand and 
 shelly limestone, forming beds of from 140 to 280 feet in depth or 
 vertical thickness. 
 
 2nd. Hastings Sand, in which occur some clays and calcareous 
 grits, forming beds of from 400 to 500 feet in depth. 
 
 3rd. Purbeck Beds, so called from being exposed chiefly in the 
 Isle of Purbeck, off the coast of Dorsetshire, where it forms the 
 quarries of the limestone for which Purbeck is famous : the beds 
 of limestones and marls are from 150 to 200 feet in depth. 
 
 Kos. 4 & 5 .—The Igtjanodon. 
 
 (Iguanodon Mantelli , Conybeare.) 
 
 One afternoon, in the spring of 1822, an accomplished lady, the 
 wife of a medical practitioner, at Lewes, in Sussex, walking along 
 the picturesque paths of Tilgate Forest, discovered some objects in 
 the coarse conglomerate rock of the quarries of that locality, which, 
 from their peculiar form and substance, she thought would be 
 interesting to her husband, whose attention had been directed, 
 during his professional drives, to the geology and fossils of his 
 neighbourhood. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 15 
 
 The lady was Mrs. Mantell : her husband, the subsequently 
 distinguished geologist, Dr. Mantell, # perceived that the fossils 
 discovered by his wife were teeth, and teeth of a large and 
 unknown animal. 
 
 “ As these teeth,” writes the doctor, “ were distinct from any 
 that had previously come under my notice, I felt anxious to sub¬ 
 mit them to the examination of persons whose knowledge and 
 means of observation were more extensive than my own. I 
 therefore transmitted specimens to some of the most eminent 
 naturalists in this country and on the continent. But although 
 my communications were acknowledged with that candour and 
 liberality which constantly characterise the intercourse of scien¬ 
 tific men, yet no light was thrown upon the subject, except by 
 the illustrious Baron Cuvier, whose opinions will best appear by 
 the following extract from the correspondence with which he 
 honoured me :— 
 
 “ ‘ These teeth are certainly unknown to me ; they are not from 
 a carnivorous animal, and yet I believe that they belong, from 
 their slight degree of complexity, the notching of their margins, 
 and the thin coat of enamel that covers them, to the order of 
 reptiles. 
 
 “ ‘ May we not here have a new animal !—a herbivorous reptile ? 
 And, just as at the present time with regard to mammals (land- 
 quadrupeds with warm blood), it is amongst the herbivorous that 
 we find the largest species, so also with the reptiles at the remote 
 period when they were the sole terrestrial animals, might not the 
 largest amongst them have been nourished by vegetables ? 
 
 “ 4 Some of the great bones which you possess may belong to 
 this animal, which, up to the present time, is unique in its kind. 
 Time will confirm or confute this idea, since it is impossible but 
 that one day a part of the skeleton, united to portions of jaws 
 with the teeth, will be discovered.’” 
 
 “ These remarks,” Dr. Mantell proceeds to say, “induced me to 
 pursue my investigations with increased assiduity, but hitherto they 
 have not been attended with the desired success, no comiected 
 
 * “ The first specimens of the teeth were found by Mrs. Mantell in the coarse 
 conglomerate of the Forest, in the spring of 1822.”—Mantell, “Greology of the 
 South-East of England,” 8vo, 1833, p. 268. 
 
16 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 portion of the skeleton having been discovered. Among the speci¬ 
 mens lately connected, some, however, were so perfect, that I 
 resolved to avail myself of the obliging offer of Mr. Clift (to whose 
 kindness and liberality I hold myself particularly indebted), to 
 assist me in comparing the fossil teeth with those of the recent 
 Lacertse in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The 
 result of this examination proved highly satisfactory, for in an 
 Iguana which Mr. Stutchbury had prepared to present to the 
 College, we discovered teeth possessing the form and structure of 
 the fossil specimens.” (Phil. Trans., 1825, p. 180.) And he 
 afterwards adds :—“ The name Iguanodon, derived from the form 
 of the teeth, (and which I have adopted at the suggestion of the 
 Rev. W. Conybeare,) will not, it is presumed, be deemed objec¬ 
 tionable.” (Ib. p. 184.) 
 
 The further discovery which Baron Cuvier’s prophetic glance 
 saw buried in the womb of time, and the birth of which verified 
 his conjecture that some of the great bones collected by Dr. Mantell 
 belonged to the same animal as the teeth, was made by Mr. W. H. 
 Bensted, of Maidstone, the proprietor of a stone-quarry of the 
 Shanklin-sand formation, in the close vicinity of that town. This 
 gentleman had his attention one day, in May, 1834, called by his 
 workmen to what they supposed to be petrified wood in some pieces 
 of stone which they had been blasting. He perceived that what 
 they supposed to be wood was fossil bone, and with a zeal and 
 care which have always characterised his endeavours to secure for 
 science any evidence of fossil remains in his quarry, he immediately 
 resorted to the spot. He found that the bore or blast by which these 
 remains were brought to light, had been inserted into the centre of 
 the specimen, so that the mass of stone containing it had been shat¬ 
 tered into many pieces, some of which were blown into the adjoining 
 fields. All these pieces he had carefully collected, and proceeding 
 with equal ardour and success to the removal of the matrix from 
 the fossils, he succeeded after a month’s labour in exposing them 
 to view, and in fitting the fragments to their proper places. 
 
 This specimen is now in the British Museum. 
 
 Many other specimens of detached bones, including vertebrae or 
 parts of the back-bone, especially that part resting on the hind 
 limbs, and called the il pelvis,” bones of the limbs, down to those 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 17 
 
 that supported the claws, together with jaws and teeth, which have 
 since been successively discovered, have enabled anatomists to re¬ 
 construct the extinct Iguanodon, and have proved it to have been a 
 herbivorous reptile, of colossal dimensions, analogous to the diminu¬ 
 tive Iguana in the form of its teeth, but belonging to a distinct and 
 higher order of reptiles, more akin to the crocodiles. The same 
 rich materials, selecting the largest of the bones as a standard, have 
 served for the present restorations (Nos. 4 and 5) of the animal, as 
 when alive : all the parts being kept in just proportion to the 
 standard bones, and the whole being thus brought to the following 
 dimensions :— 
 
 Total length, from the nose or muzzle to the end 
 
 of the tail . . . . .34 feet 9 inches. 
 
 Greatest girth of the trunk . . . 20 ,, 5 ,, 
 
 Length of the head . , . . 3 ,, 6 ,, 
 
 Length of the tail . . . 15 ,, 6 ,, 
 
 The character of the scales is conjectural, and the horn more 
 than doubtful, though attributed to the Iguanodon by Dr. Mantell 
 and most geologists. 
 
 This animal probably lived near estuaries and rivers, and may 
 have derived its food from the Clathrarioe ., Zamice , Gycades, and 
 other extinct trees, of which the fossil remains abound in the same 
 formations as those yielding the bones and teeth of the Iguanodon. 
 
 These formations are the Wealden and the Neocomian or green¬ 
 sand : the localities in which the remains of the Iguanodon have been 
 principally found, are the Weald of Kent and Sussex : Horsham, 
 in Sussex ; Maidstone, in Kent; and the Isle of Wight. 
 
 Restorations of the Cycas and Zamia are placed, with the 
 Iguanodon, on the Wealden division of the Secondary Island. 
 
 No. 6 . —The Hyljeosatjktjs. (Hylazosaurus Owenii ) 
 
 The animal, so called by its discoverer, Dr. Mantell, belongs to 
 the same highly organised order of the class of reptiles as the 
 Iguanodon, that, viz., which was characterised by a longer and 
 stronger sacrum and pelvis, and by larger limbs than the reptiles of 
 the present day possess ; they were accordingly better fitted for 
 progression on dry land, and probably carried their body higher and 
 more freely above the surface of the ground. 
 
 c 
 
13 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 Visiting, in the summer of 1832, a quarry in Tilgate Forest, 
 Dr. Mantell had his attention attracted to some fragments of a large 
 mass of stone, which had recently been broken up, and which exhi¬ 
 bited traces of numerous pieces of bone. The portions of the rock, 
 which admitted of being restored together, were cemented, and 
 then the rock was chiselled from the fossil bones, which consisted 
 of part of the back-bone or vertebral column, some ribs, the 
 shoulder bones called scapula and coracoid, and numerous long 
 angular bones or spines which seemed to have supported a lofty 
 serrated or jagged crest, extended along the middle of the back, as 
 in some of the small existing lizards, e.g., the Iguana : cut No. 6. 
 Many small dermal bones were also found, which indicate the 
 Hylaeosaurus to have been covered by hard tuberculate scales, like 
 those of some of the Australian lizards, called Cyclodus. 
 
 This character of the skin, and the serrated crest, are accurately 
 given in the restoration, the major part of which, however, is 
 necessarily at present conjectural, and carried out according to the 
 general analogies of the saurian form. The size is indicated with 
 more certainty according to the proportions of the known vertebrae 
 and other bones. 
 
 No. 6. Diagram of the Slab containing the Bones of Hylteosaurus. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 19 
 
 THE OOLITE. 
 
 The division of the secondary formations, called “ Oolite,” takes 
 its name from the most characteristic of its constituents, which is a 
 variety of limestone composed of numerous small grains, resembling 
 the “roe” or eggs of a fish, whence the term, (from the Greek oon, 
 an egg, lithos, a stone). The oolite, however, includes a great series 
 of beds of marine origin, which, with an average breadth of thirty 
 miles, extend across England, from Yorkshire in the north-east to 
 Dorsetshire in the south-west. 
 
 The oolite series lies below the Wealden, and where this is 
 wanting, below the chalk, and consists of the following subdivisions, 
 succeeding each other in the descending order :— 
 
 Oolite. 
 
 ( Portland stone and sand. 
 
 Kimmeridge clay. 
 
 ( Coral rag. 
 
 Oxford clay. 
 
 { Cornbrash and forest marble. 
 
 Great oolite and Stonesfield slate. 
 
 Fuller’s earth. 
 
 Inferior oolite. 
 
 Upon the portion of the island representing the oolite series, the 
 most conspicuous of the restored animals of that period is— 
 
 Upper. 
 
 Middle. 
 
 Lower. 
 
 No. 7. —The Megalosauhus. 
 
 The Megalosaurus, as its name implies (compounded by its dis¬ 
 coverer, Dr. Buckland, from the Greek megas, great, and sauros , 
 lizard), was a lizard-like reptile of great size, “ of which,” writes Dr. 
 Buckland, “although no skeleton has yet been found entire, so 
 many perfect bones and teeth have been discovered in the same 
 quarries, that we are nearly as well acquainted with the form and 
 dimensions of the limbs as if they had been found together in a single 
 block of stone.” 
 
20 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 The restoration of the animal has been accordingly effected, 
 agreeably with the proportions of the known parts of the skeleton, 
 and in harmony with the general characters of the order of 
 reptiles to which the Megalosaurus belonged. This order—the 
 Dinosauria (Gr. deinos, terribly great sauros, a lizard)—is that 
 to which the two foregoing huge reptiles of the Wealden series 
 belong, viz., the Iguanodon and Hylseosaurus, and is characterised 
 
 No. 7. Megalosaurus. 
 
 by the modifications already mentioned, that fitted them for more 
 efficient progression upon dry land. The Iguanodon represented 
 the herbivorous section of the order, the Hylseosaurus appears, from 
 its teeth, to have been a mixed feeder, but the Megalosaurus was 
 decidedly carnivorous, and, probably, waged a deadly war against 
 its less destructively endowed congeners and contemporaries. 
 
 Baron Cuvier estimated the Megalosaurus to have been about 
 fifty feet in length ; my own calculations, founded on more com¬ 
 plete evidence than had been at the Baron’s command, reduce its 
 size to about thirty-five feet :* but with the superior proportional 
 height and capacity of trunk, as contrasted with the largest existing 
 crocodiles, even that length gives a most formidable character to 
 this extinct predatory reptile. 
 
 As the thigh-bone (femur) and leg-bone (tibia) measure each 
 nearly three feet, the entire hind-leg, allowing for the cartilages of 
 the joints, must have attained a length of two yards : a bone of the 
 
 * “ Report of British Fossil Reptiles,” 1841, p. 110. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WOKLD. 
 
 21 
 
 foot (metatarsal) thirteen inches long, indicates that part, with the 
 toes and claws entire, to have been at least three feet in length- 
 The form of the teeth shows the Megalosaurus to have been strictly 
 carnivorous, and viewed as instruments for providing food for 
 so enormous a reptile, the teeth were fearfully fitted to the 
 destructive office for which they were designed. They have com¬ 
 pressed conical sharp-pointed crowns, with cutting and finely 
 serrated anterior and posterior edges ; they appear straight, as 
 seen when they had just protruded from the socket, but become 
 bent slightly backwards in the progress of growth, and the 
 fore part of the crown, below the summit, becomes thick and 
 convex. 
 
 A minute and interesting description of these teeth will be found 
 in Dr. Buckland’s admirable “Bridgewater Treatise” (vol. i. 
 p. 238), from which he concludes that the teeth of the Megalosaurus 
 present “ a combination of contrivances analogous to those which 
 human ingenuity has adopted in the construction of the knife, the 
 sabre, and the saw.” The fossils which brought to light the former 
 existence of this most formidable reptile, were discovered in 1823? 
 in the oolitic slate of Stonesfield, near Oxford, and were described 
 by Dr.Buckland, in the volume of the iC Geological Transactions” 
 for the year 1824. 
 
 Remains of the Megalosaurus have since been discovered in the 
 C{ Bath oolite,” which is immediately below the Stonesfield slate, 
 and in the “ Cornbrash,” which lies above it. Vertebrae, teeth, 
 and some bones of the extremities have been discovered in the 
 Wealden of Tilgate Forest, Kent, and in the ferruginous sand, 
 of the same age, near Cuckfield, in Sussex. Remains of the 
 Megalosaurus also occur in the Purbeck limestone at Swanage Bay, 
 and in the oolite in the neighbourhood of Malton, in Yorkshire. 
 
 Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins’s restoration, according to the propor¬ 
 tions calculated from the largest portions of fossil bones of the 
 Megalosaurus hitherto obtained, yields a total length of the animal, 
 from the muzzle to the end of the tail, of thirty-seven feet; the 
 length of the head being five feet, the length of the tail fifteen feet; 
 and the greatest girth of the body twenty-two feet six inches. 
 
22 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 Nos. 8 & 9 .—Pterodactyles of the Oolite. 
 
 To the right of the Hylaeosaurus, on the rock representing the 
 greater oolite formation, are restorations of species of Pterodactyle 
 (Pterodactylus Bucldandi , No. 9), smaller than and distinct from those 
 of the chalk formations. The remains of Buckland’s Pterodactyle are 
 found pretty abundantly in the oolitic slate of Stonesfield, near 
 Oxford. 
 
 Nos. 10 & 11.—Teleosaurus. 
 
 On the shore beneath the overhanging cliff of oolitic rock are two 
 restorations, Nos. 10 and 11, of a large extinct kind of crocodile, 
 to which the long and slender-jawed crocodile of the Ganges, called 
 “Gavikl” or “ Gharrihl” by the Hindoos, offers the nearest resem¬ 
 blance at the present day. Remains of the ancient extinct British 
 gavials have been found in most of the localities where the oolitic for¬ 
 mations occur, and very abundantly in the lias cliffs near Whitby, in 
 Yorkshire. The name Teleosaurus ( telos , the end, sauros , a lizard), 
 was compounded from the Greek by Professor Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 
 for a species of these fossil gavials, found by him in the oolite stone 
 at Caen, in Normandy, and has reference to his belief that they 
 formed one—the earliest—extreme of the crocodilian series, as this 
 series has been successively developed in the course of time on our 
 planet. 
 
 The jaws are armed with numerous long, slender, sharp-pointed, 
 slightly curved teeth, indicating that they preyed on fishes, and the 
 young or weaker individuals of co-existing reptiles. The nostril 
 is situated more at the end of the upper jaw than in the modern 
 gavial : the fore-limbs are shorter, and the hind ones longer and 
 stronger than in the gavial, which indicates that the Teleosaur was 
 a better swimmer ; the vertebras or bones of the back are united by 
 slightly concave surfaces, not interlocked by cup and ball joints as 
 in the modern crocodiles, whence it would seem that the Teleosaur 
 lived more habitually in the water, and less seldom moved on dry 
 land ; and, as its fossil remains have been hitherto found only in 
 the sedimentary deposits from the sea, it may be inferred that it 
 was more strictly marine than the crocodile of the Ganges. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 23 
 
 The first specimen of a Teleosaur that was brought to light was 
 from the “ alum-schale ” which forms one layer of the lofty lias 
 cliffs of the Yorkshire coast, near Whitby. A brief description, 
 and figures, of this incomplete fossil skeleton were published by 
 Messrs. Wooller and Chapman, in separate communications, in 
 the 50th volume of the ‘‘ Philosophical Transactions,” in 1758. 
 Captain Chapman observes, “ it seems to have been an alligator 
 and Mr. Wooller thought “ it resembled in every respect the 
 Gangetic gavial.” Thus, nearly a century ago, the true nature of 
 the fossil was almost rightly understood, and various were the 
 theories then broached to account for the occurrence of a supposed 
 Gangetic reptile in a petrified state in the cliffs of Yorkshire. It 
 has required the subsequent progress of comparative anatomy to 
 determine, as by the characters above defined, the essential dis¬ 
 tinction of the Teleosaur from all known existing forms of croco¬ 
 dilian reptiles. 
 
 Very abundant remains, and several species, of the extinct genus 
 have been subsequently discovered : but always in the oolitic and 
 liassic formations of the secondary series of rocks. 
 
 The oolitic group of rocks are very rich in remains of both 
 plants and animals : many reptiles of genera and species distinct 
 from those here restored have been recognised and determined by 
 portions of the skeleton. Extremely numerous are the remains of 
 fishes, chiefly of an almost extinct order ( Ganoidei ), characterised 
 by hard, shining, enamelled scales. But the most remarkable 
 fossils are those which indisputably prove the existence, during the 
 period of the “ Great ” or “ Lower Oolite,” of insectivorous and 
 marsupial mammalia— i. e., of warm-blood quadrupeds, which, 
 like the shrew or hedgehog, fed on insects, and, like the opossum, 
 had a pouch for the transport of the young. The lower jaw of 
 one of these earliest known examples of the mammalian class, 
 found in the Stonesfield slate, near Oxford, may be seen at the 
 British Museum, to which it was presented by J. W. Broderip, 
 Esq., F.R.S., by whom it was described in the “Zoological 
 Journal,” vol. iii., p. 408. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that the marsupial genera, to which 
 the above fossil quadruped, called Phascolotherium, was most 
 nearly allied, are now confined to New South Wales and Yan 
 
24 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 Diemen’s Land ; since it is in the Australian seas that is found 
 the Cestracion, a cartilaginous fish which has teeth that are most 
 like those fossil teeth called Acrodus and Psammodus , so common 
 in the oolite. In the same Australian seas, also, near the shore, 
 the beautiful shell-fish called Trigonia is found living, of which 
 genus many fossil species occur in the Stonesfield slate. More¬ 
 over, the Araucarian pines are now abundant, together with ferns, 
 in Australia, as they were in Europe in the oolitic period. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 25 
 
 THE LIAS. 
 
 “ Lias ” is an English provincial name adopted in geology, and 
 applied to a formation of limestone, marl, and petrified clay, which 
 forms the base of the oolite, or immediately underlies that division 
 of secondary rocks. The lias has been traced throughout a great 
 part of Europe, forming beds of a thickness varying from 500 to 
 1000 feet of the above-mentioned substances, which have been 
 gradually deposited from a sea of corresponding extent and 
 direction. The lias abounds with marine shells of extinct species, 
 and with remains of fishes that were clad with large and hard 
 shining scales. Of the higher or air-breathing animals of that 
 period, the most characteristic were the 
 
 Enaliosauria. 
 
 The creatures called Enaliosauria or Sea-lizards (from the Greek 
 enalios , of the sea, and sauros , lizard), were vertebrate animals, or 
 had back bones, breathed the air like land quadrupeds, but were 
 cold-blooded, or of a low temperature, like crocodiles and other 
 reptiles. The proof that the Enaliosaurs respired atmospheric air 
 immediately, and did not breathe water by means of gills like fishes, 
 is afforded by the absence of the bony framework of the gill 
 apparatus, and by the presence, position, and structure of the air 
 passages leading from the nostrils, and also by the bony mechanism 
 of the capacious chest or thoracic-abdominal cavity : all of which 
 characters have been demonstrated by their fossil skeletons. With 
 these characters the Sea-lizards combined the presence of two pairs 
 of limbs shaped like fins, and adapted for swimming. 
 
 The Enaliosauria offer two principal modifications of their 
 anatomical, and especially their bony, structure, of which the two 
 kinds grouped together under the respective names of Ichthyosaurus 
 and Plesiosaurus are the examples. 
 
 The Ichthyosaurus. 
 
 The genus Ichthyosaurus includes many species : of which three 
 
26 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 of the best known and most remarkable have been selected for 
 restoration to illustrate this most singular of the extinct forms of 
 animal life. 
 
 The name (from the Greek ichthys, a fish, and sauros , a lizard) 
 indicates the closer affinity of the Ichthyosaur, as compared with 
 the Plesiosaur, to the class of fishes. The Ichthyosaurs are remark¬ 
 able for the shortness of the neck and the equality of the width of 
 the back of the head with the front of the chest, impressing the 
 observer of the fossil skeleton with a conviction that the ancient 
 animal must have resembled the whale tribe and the fishes in the 
 absence of any intervening constriction or “neck.” 
 
 This close approximation in the Ichthyosaurs to the form of the 
 most strictly aquatic back-boned (vertebrate) animals of the existing 
 creation is accompanied by an important modification of the sur¬ 
 faces forming the joints of the back-bone, each of which surfaces 
 is hollow, leading to the inference that they were originally con¬ 
 nected together by an elastic bag, or “ capsule,” filled with fluid— 
 a structure which prevails in the class of fishes, but not in any of 
 the whale or porpoise tribe, nor in any, save a few of the very 
 lowest and most fish-like, of the existing reptiles. 
 
 With the above modifications of the head, trunk, and limbs, in 
 relation to swimming, there co-exist corresponding modifications of 
 the tail. The bones of this part are much more numerous than in 
 the Plesiosaurs, and the entire tail is consequently longer ; but it 
 does not show any of those modifications that characterise the bony 
 support of the tail in fishes. The numerous “ caudal vertebrae ” 
 of the Ichthyosaurus gradually decrease in size to the end of the 
 tail, where they assume a compressed form, or are flattened from 
 side to side, and thus the tail instead of being short and broad, as 
 in fishes, is lengthened out as in crocodiles. 
 
 The very frequent occurrence of a fracture of the tail, about 
 one fourth of the way from its extremity, in well-preserved 
 and entire fossil skeletons, is owing to that proportion of the 
 end of the tail having supported a tail-fin. The only evi¬ 
 dence which the fossil skeleton of a whale would yield of the 
 powerful horizontal tail-fin characteristic of the living animal, is 
 the depressed or horizontally flattened form of the bones supporting 
 such fin. It is inferred, therefore, from the corresponding bones 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WOULD. 
 
 27 
 
 of the Ichthyosaurus being flattened from side to side, that it 
 possessed a tegumentary tail-fin expanded in the vertical direction. 
 The shape of a fin composed of such perishable material is of 
 course conjectural, but from analogies, not necessary here to 
 further enlarge upon, it was probably like, or nearly like, that 
 which the able artist engaged in the restoration of the entire form 
 of the animal has given to it. Thus, in the construction of the 
 principal swimming-organ of the Ichthyosaurus we may trace, as 
 in other parts of its structure, a combination of mammalian 
 (beast-like), saurian (lizard-like), and piscine (fish-like) peculiarities. 
 In its great length and gradual diminution we perceive its saurian 
 character ; the tegumentary nature of the fin, unsustained by bony 
 fin-rays, bespeaks its affinity to the same part in the mammalian 
 whales and porpoises ; whilst its vertical position makes it closely 
 resemble the tail-fin of the fish. 
 
 The horizontality of the tail-fin of the whale tribe is essentially 
 connected with their necessities as warm-blooded animals breath¬ 
 ing atmospheric air ; without this means of displacing a mass of 
 water in the vertical direction, the head of the whale could not be 
 brought with the required rapidity to the surface to respire ; but 
 the Ichthyosaurs, not being warm-blooded, or quick breathers, 
 would not need to bring their head to the surface so frequently, or 
 so rapidly, as the whale ; and, moreover, a compensation for the 
 want of horizontality of their tail-fin was provided by the addition 
 of a pair of hind-paddles, which are not present in the whale 
 tribe. The vertical fin was a more efficient organ in the rapid 
 cleaving of the liquid element, when the Ichthyosaurs were in 
 pursuit of their prey, or escaping from an enemy. 
 
 That the Ichthyosaurs occasionally sought the shores, crawled 
 on the strand, and basked in the sunshine, may be inferred from 
 the bony structure connected with their fore-fins, which does not 
 exist in any porpoise, dolphin, grampus, or whale ; and for want of 
 which, chiefly, those warm-blooded, air-breathing, marine animals are 
 so helpless when left high and dry on the sands : the structure in ques¬ 
 tion in the Ichthyosaur is a strong osseous arch, inverted and span¬ 
 ning across beneath the chest from one shoulder-joint to the other ; 
 and what is most remarkable in the structure of this “ scapular ” 
 arch, as it is called, is, that it closely resembles, in the number, 
 
28 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 shape, and disposition of its bones, the same part in the singular 
 aquatic mammalian quadruped of Australia, called Ornithorhyndius , 
 Platypus , and Duck-mole. The Ichthyosaurs, when so visiting the 
 shore, either for sleep, or procreation, would lie, or crawl prostrate, 
 or with the belly resting or dragging on the ground. 
 
 The most extraordinary feature of the head was the enor¬ 
 mous magnitude of the eye ; and from the quantity of light 
 admitted by the expanded pupil it must have possessed great 
 powers of vision, especially in the dusk. It is not uncommon to 
 find in front of the orbit (cavity for the eye), in fossil skulls, a 
 circular series of petrified thin bony plates, ranged round a cen¬ 
 tral aperture, where the pupil of the eye was placed. The eyes of 
 many fishes are defended by a bony covering consisting of two 
 pieces ; but a compound circle of overlapping plates is now found 
 only in the eyes of turtles, tortoises, lizards, and birds. This 
 curious apparatus of bony plates would aid in protecting the eye¬ 
 ball from the waves of the sea when the Ichthyosaurus rose to the 
 surface, and from the pressure of the dense element when it dived 
 to great depths ; and they show, writes Dr. Buckland,* “ that 
 the enormous eye, of which they formed the front, was an optical 
 instrument of varied and prodigious power, enabling the Ichthyo¬ 
 saurus to descry its prey at great or little distances, in the 
 obscurity of night, and in the depths of the sea.” 
 
 Of no extinct reptile are the materials for a complete and 
 exact restoration more abundant and satisfactory than of the Ichthyo¬ 
 saurus they plainly show that its general external figure must 
 have been that of a huge predatory abdominal fish, with a longer 
 tail, and a smaller tail-fin : scale-less, moreover, and covered by 
 a smooth, or finely wrinkled skin analogous to that of the 
 whale tribe. 
 
 The mouth was wide, and the jaws long, and armed with 
 numerous pointed teeth, indicative of a predatory and carnivorous 
 nature in all the species ; but these differed from one another in 
 regard to the relative strength of the jaws, and the relative size 
 and length of the teeth. 
 
 Masses of masticated bones and scales of extinct fishes, that 
 lived in the same seas and at the same period as the Ichthyo- 
 
 Op. cit., p. 174. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 29 
 
 saurus, have been found under the ribs of fossil specimens, in the 
 situation where the stomach of the animal was placed ; smaller, 
 harder, and more digested masses, containing also fish-bones and 
 scales have been found, bearing the impression of the structure of 
 the internal surface of the intestine of the great predatory sea- 
 lizard. These digested masses are called “ coprolites.” 
 
 In tracing the evidences of creative power from the earlier to the 
 later formations of the earth’s crust, remains of the Ichthyosaurus 
 are first found in the lower lias, and occur, more or less abundantly, 
 through all the superincumbent secondary strata up to, and inclusive 
 of, the chalk formations. They are most numerous in the lias and 
 oolite, and the largest and most characteristic species have been 
 found in these formations. 
 
 No. 12 .—Ichthyosaurus platyodon. 
 
 This most gigantic species, so called on account of the crown of 
 the tooth being more flattened than in other species, and having 
 sharp edges, as well as a sharp point, was first discovered in the 
 lias of Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire. Fossil remains now in the 
 British Museum, and in the museum of the Geological Society, 
 fully bear out the dimensions exhibited by the restoration of the 
 animal as seen basking on the shore between the two specimens of 
 Long-necked Plesiosaurs. The head of this species is relatively 
 larger in proportion to the trunk, than in the Ichthyosaurus com¬ 
 munis or Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris: the lower jaw is remarkably mas¬ 
 sive and powerful, and projects backwards beyond the joint, as far as 
 it does in the crocodile. In the skull of an individual of this species, 
 preserved in the apartments of the Geological Society of London, the 
 cavity for the eye, or orbit, measures, in its long diameter, fourteen 
 inches. The fore and hind paddles are large and of equal size. 
 
 The lias of the valley of Lyme Regis, Dorsetshire, is the chief 
 grave-yard of the Ichthyosaurus jplatyodon ; but its remains are 
 pretty widely distributed. They have been found in the lias of 
 Glastonbury, of Bristol, of Scarborough and Whitby, and of Bitton, 
 in Gloucestershire ; some vertebrae, apparently of this species, 
 have likewise been found in the lias at Ohmden, in Germany. 
 
30 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 No. 13 .—Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris. 
 
 Behind the Ichthyosaurus platyodon, is placed the restoration of 
 the Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris, or Slender-snouted Fish-lizard. The 
 most striking peculiarity of this species is the great length and 
 slenderness of the jaw-bones, which, in combination with the large 
 eye-sockets and flattened cranium, give to the entire skull a form 
 which resembles that of a gigantic snipe or woodcock, with the bill 
 armed with teeth. These weapons, in the present species, are 
 relatively more numerous, smaller, and more sharply pointed than in 
 the foregoing, and indicate that the Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris preyed 
 on a smaller kind of fish. The fore-paddles are larger than the hind 
 ones. In the museum of the Philosophical Institution, at Bristol, 
 there is an almost entire skeleton of the present species which 
 measures thirteen feet in length. It was discovered in the lias 
 of Lyme Regis. Portions of jaws and other parts of the 
 skeletons of larger individuals have been found fossil in the 
 liasnear Bristol, at Barrow-on-Soar, in Leicestershire, and at 
 Stratford-on-Avon. The Ichthyosaurus tenuirostris has also left its 
 remains in the lias formation at Boll and Amburg, in Wirtemberg, 
 Germany. 
 
 No. 14.—Ichthyosaurus communis. 
 
 Of this species, which was the most “common,” when first dis¬ 
 covered in 1824, but which has since been surpassed by other 
 species in regard to the known number of individuals, the head is 
 restored, as protruded from the water, to the right of the fore¬ 
 going species. 
 
 The Ichthyosaurus communis is characterised by its relatively 
 large teeth, with expanded, deeply-grooved bases, and round conical 
 farrowed crowns ; the upper jaw contains, on each side, from forty 
 to fifty of such teeth. The fore-paddles are three times larger than 
 the hind ones. With respect to the size which it attained, the 
 Ichthyosaurus communis seems only to be second to the Ichthyosaurus 
 platyodon. In the museum of the Earl of Enniskillen, there is a 
 fossil skull of the Ichthyosaurus communis which measures, in length, 
 two feet nine inches, indicating an animal of at least twenty feet 
 in length. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 31 
 
 Plesiosaurus. 
 
 The discovery of this genus forms one of the most important 
 additions that geology has made to comparative anatomy. Baron 
 Cuvier deemed “ its structure to have been the most singular, and 
 its characters the most monstrous, that had been yet discovered amid 
 the ruins of a former world.’’ To the head of a lizard it united 
 the teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous length, resembling the 
 body of a serpent, a trunk and tail having the proportions of an 
 ordinary quadruped, the ribs of a chameleon, and the paddles of a 
 whale. “Such,” writes Dr. Buckland, “are the strange combina¬ 
 tions of form and structure in the Plesiosaurus, a genus, the 
 remains of which, after interment for thousands of years amidst 
 the wreck of millions of extinct inhabitants of the ancient earth, 
 are at length recalled to light by the researches of the geologist, 
 and submitted to our examination, in nearly as perfect a state as 
 the bones of species that are now existing upon the earth.” (Op. 
 cit., vol. v. p. 203). 
 
 The first remains of this animal were discovered in the lias of 
 Lyme Regis, about the year 1823, and formed the subject of the 
 paper by the Rev. Mr. Conybeare (now Dean of Llandaff), and 
 Mr. (now Sir Henry) De la Beche, in which the genus was 
 established and named Plesiosaurus (from the Greek words, plesios 
 and sauros, signifying “near” or “allied to,” and “lizard”), 
 because the authors saw that it was more nearly allied to the lizard 
 than was the Ichthyosaurus from the same formation. 
 
 The entire and undisturbed skeletons of several individuals, of 
 different species, have since been discovered, fully confirming the 
 sagacious restorations by the original discoverers of the Plesiosaurus. 
 Of these species three have been selected as the subjects of Mr. 
 Waterhouse Hawkins’s reconstructions and representations of the 
 living form of the strange reptiles. 
 
 No. 15 .—Plesiosaurus macrocephalus. 
 
 The first of these has been called, from the relatively larger size 
 of the head, the Plesiosaurus macrocephalus (No. 15), (Gr. macros , 
 long, cephale , head). The entire length of the animal, as indicated 
 by the largest remains, and as given in the restoration, is eighteen 
 
32 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 feet, the length of the head being two feet, that of the neck six 
 feet ; the greatest girth of the body yields seven feet. 
 
 No. 15. Plesiosaurus macrocephalus. 
 
 Although Baron Cuvier and Dr. Buckland both rightly allude 
 to the resemblance of the fins or paddles of the Plesiosaur to 
 those of the whale, yet this most remarkable difference must be 
 borne in mind, that, whereas the whale tribe have never more than 
 one pair of fins, the Plesiosaurs have always two pairs, answering 
 to the fore and hind limbs of land quadrupeds ; and the fore-pair 
 of fins, corresponding to those in the whale, differed by being more 
 firmly articulated, through the medium of collar-bones (clavicles), 
 and of two other very broad and strong bones (called coracoids), 
 to the trunk (thorax), whereby they were the better enabled to 
 move the animal upon dry land. 
 
 Remains of the Plesiosaurus macrocephalus have been discovered 
 in the lias of Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire, and of Weston, in 
 Somersetshire. 
 
 No. 16.— Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus. 
 
 Further to the left, on the shore of the Secondary Island, is a 
 restoration of the Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus , or Long-necked Plesio¬ 
 saurus (No. 16). The head in this remarkable species is smaller, and 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 33 
 
 the neck proportionally longer than in the Plesiosaurus macrocephalus. 
 The remains of the Long-necked Plesiosaur have been found chiefly 
 at Lyme Regis, in Dorsetshire. The well known specimen of an 
 almost entire skeleton, formerly in the possession of His Grace the 
 Duke of Buckingham, is now in the British Museum. 
 
 No. 17.— Plesiosaurus Hawkinsii. 
 
 The most perfect skeletons of the Plesiosaurus are those that 
 have been wrought out of the lias at Street, near Glastonbury, by 
 Mr. Thomas Hawkins, F.G.S., and which have been purchased by 
 the trustees of the British Museum. A restoration is given by 
 Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, at No. 17, of a species with characters 
 somewhat intermediate between the Large-headed and Long-necked 
 Plesiosaurs, and which has been called, after its discoverer, Plesio¬ 
 saurus Hawkinsii. 
 
 The Plesiosaurs breathed air like the existing crocodiles and the 
 whale tribe, and appear to have lived in shallow seas aid estuaries. 
 That the Long-necked Sea-lizard was aquatic is evident from the 
 form of its paddles ; and that it was marine is almost equally so, 
 from the remains with which its fossils are universally associated ; 
 that it may have occasionally visited the shore, the resemblance of 
 its extremities to those of a turtle leads us to conjecture ; its 
 motion, however, must have been very awkward on land ; its long 
 neck must have impeded its progress through the water, presenting 
 a striking contrast to the organisation which so admirably adapted 
 the Ichthyosaurus to cut its swift course through the waves. “ May 
 it not, therefore, be concluded that it swam upon, or near the 
 surface,” asks its accomplished discoverer, “ arching back its long 
 neck like a swan, and occasionally darting it down at the fish that 
 happened to float within its reach 1 It may perhaps have lurked 
 in shoal-water along the coast, concealed among the sea-weed, and, 
 raising its nostrils to a level with the surface from a considerable 
 depth, may have found a secure retreat from the assaults of 
 dangerous enemies ; while the length and flexibility of its neck 
 may have compensated for the want of strength in its jaws, and 
 its incapacity for swift motion through the water, by the sudden- 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 ness and agility of the attack which it enabled it to make on every 
 animal fitted for its prey which came within its reach.” # 
 
 For the Secondary Island three species of the Plesiosaurus have 
 been restored, the Plesiosaurus macrocephalus } the Plesiosaurus 
 dolichodeirus (Gr. dolichos , long, deire, neck), and the Plesiosaurus 
 Hawkinsii. The name “ long-necked ” was given to the second of 
 these species before it was known that many other species with 
 long and slender necks had existed in the seas of the same ancient 
 period : the third species is named after Mr. Thomas Hawkins, 
 F.G.S., the gentleman by whose patience, zeal, and skill, the 
 British Museum has been enriched with so many entire skeletons 
 of these most extraordinary extinct sea-lizards. 
 
 The remains of all these species occur in the lias at Lyme Regis, 
 and at Street, near Glastonbury ; but the Plesiosaurus Hawkinsii 
 is the most abundant in the latter locality. 
 
 * “Transactions of the Geological Society,” Second Series, vi. 508. 1841. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 35 
 
 NEW RED SANDSTONE. 
 
 “Trias” is an arbitrary term applied in geology to the upper 
 division of a vast series of red loams, shales, and sandstones, inter¬ 
 posed between the lias and the coal, in the midland and western 
 counties of England. This series is collectively called the “New 
 Red Sandstone formation,” to distinguish it from the “ Old Red 
 Sandstone formation,” of similar or identical mineral character, 
 which lies immediately beneath the coal. 
 
 The animals which have been restored and placed on the lowest 
 formation of the Secondary Island, are peculiar to the “ triassic,” 
 or upper division of the “New Red Sandstone” series, which 
 division consists, in England, of saliferous (salt-including) shales and 
 sandstones, from 1000 to 1500 feet thick in Lancashire and 
 Cheshire, answering to the formation called “ Keuper-sandstone ” 
 by the German geologists ; and of sandstone and quartzose con¬ 
 glomerate of 600 feet in thickness, answering to the German 
 “ Bunter-sandstone.” 
 
 The largest and most characteristic animals of the trias are 
 reptiles of the order 
 
 Batrachia. 
 
 The name of this order is from the Greek word batrachos , 
 signifying a frog : and the order is represented in the present 
 animal-population of England by a few diminutive species of frogs, 
 toads, and newts, or water-salamanders. But, at the period of the 
 deposition of the new red sandstone, in the present counties of 
 Warwick and Cheshire, the shores of the ancient sea, which were 
 then formed by that sandy deposit, were trodden by reptiles, 
 having the essential bony characters of the Batrachia, but com¬ 
 bining these with other bony characters of crocodiles and lizards ; 
 and exhibiting both under a bulk which is made manifest by th*» 
 restoration of the largest known species, (No. 16), occupying the 
 
36 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 extreme promontory of the Island, illustrative of the lowest and 
 oldest deposits of the secondary series of rocks. The species in 
 question is called the— 
 
 No. 18.-LABYRINTHODON SaLAMANDEOIDES. 
 
 or the Salamander-like Labyrinthodon ; the latter term being from 
 the Greek, signifying the peculiar structure of the teeth, which 
 differ from all other reptiles in the huge Batrachia in question, by 
 reason of the complex labyrinthic interblending of the different 
 substances composing the teeth. The skull of the Labyrinthodon 
 is attached to the neck-bones by two joints or condyles, and the 
 teeth are situated both on the proper jaw-bones, and on the bone 
 of the roof of the mouth called “vomer both these characters 
 are only found at the present day in the frogs and salamanders. 
 
 No. IS. Labyrinthodon Salamandroides. 
 
 The hind-foot of the Labyrinthodon was also, as in the toad and 
 frog, much larger than the fore-foot ; and the innermost digit in 
 both was short and turned in, like a thumb. 
 
 Consecutive impressions of the prints of these feet have been 
 traced for many steps in succession (as is accurately represented in 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WOULD. 
 
 37 
 
 the new red sandstone part of the Secondary Island) in quarries of 
 that formation in Warwickshire, Cheshire, and also in Lancashire, 
 more especially at a quarry of a whitish quartzose sandstone at 
 Storton Hill, a few miles from Liverpool. The foot-marks are 
 partly concave and partly in relief; the former are seen upon the 
 upper surface of the sandstone slabs, but those in relief are only 
 upon the lower surfaces, being, in fact, natural casts, formed on the 
 subjacent foot-prints as in moulds. The impressions of the hind- 
 foot are generally eight inches in length and five inches in width : 
 near each large footstep, and at a regular distance—about an inch 
 and a half—before it, a smaller print of the fore-foot, four inches 
 long and three inches wide, occurs. The footsteps follow each 
 other in pairs, each pair in the same line, at intervals of about 
 fourteen inches from pair to pair. The large as well as the small 
 steps show the thumb-like toe alternately on the right and left 
 side, each step making a print of five toes. 
 
 Foot-prints of corresponding form but of smaller size have been 
 discovered in the quarry at Storton Hill, imprinted on five thin 
 beds of clay, lying one upon another in the same quarry, and 
 separated by beds of sandstone. From the lower surface of the 
 sandstone layers, the solid casts of each impression project in high 
 relief, and afford models of the feet, toes, and claws of the animals 
 which trod on the clay. 
 
 Similar foot-prints were first observed in Saxony, at the village of 
 Hessberg, near Hillburghausen, in several quarries of a gray 
 quartzose sandstone, alternating with beds of red sandstone, and of 
 the same geological age as the sandstones of England that had 
 been trodden by the same strange animal. The German geologist, 
 who first described them, proposed the name of Glievrotherium (Gr. 
 cheir, the hand, therion , beast), for the great unknown animal that 
 had left the foot-prints, in consequence of the resemblance, both of 
 the fore and hind feet, to the impression of a human hand, and 
 Dr. Kaup conjectured that the animal might be a large species of 
 the opossum-kind. The discovery, however, of fossil skulls, jaws, 
 teeth, and a few other bones in the sandstones exhibiting the 
 footprints in question, has rendered it more probable that both the 
 footprints and the fossils are evidences of the same kind of huge 
 extinct Batrachian reptiles. 
 
38 
 
 GEOLOGY AND 
 
 An entire skull of the largest species discovered in tke new red 
 sandstones of Wurtemberg ; a lower jaw of the same species found 
 in the same formation in Warwickshire ; some vertebrae, and a 
 few fragments of bones of the limbs, have served, with the indica¬ 
 tions of size and shape of the trunk of the animal yielded by the 
 series of consecutive foot-prints, as the basis of the restoration of 
 the Labyrinthodon salamand/roides , in the Secondary Island. It is 
 to be understood, however, that, with the exception of the head, 
 the form of the animal is necessarily more or less conjectural. 
 
 Nos. 19 & 20 .—Labyrinthodon pachygnathus. 
 
 This name, signifying the Thick-jawed Labyrinthodon, was given 
 by its discoverer to a species of 
 these singular Batrachia, found in 
 the new red sandstone of Warwick¬ 
 shire, and which bears to the largest 
 species the proportion exhibited by 
 the head and fore-part of the body, 
 as emerging from the water, for 
 Nos. 19 & 20. Section of Tooth of which parts alone the fossils hither- 
 
 Labyrinthodon. to discovered justify the restora 
 
 a Pulp-cavity: b b inflected folds of J J 
 
 ossified capsule of tooth. tion. * 
 
 Nos. 21 & 22. —Dicynodon. 
 
 In 1844 Mr. Andrew G. Bain, who had been employed in the 
 construction of military roads in the colony of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, discovered, in the tract of country extending northwards 
 from the county of Albany, about 450 miles east of Cape Town, 
 several nodules or lumps of a kind of sandstone, which, when 
 broken, displayed, in most instances, evidences of fossil bones, and 
 usually of a skull with two large projecting teeth. Accordingly, 
 these evidences of ancient animal life in South Africa were first 
 notified to English geologists by Mr. Bain under the name of 
 “Bidentals;” and the specimens transmitted by him were sub- 
 
 * Conybeare, Geol. Trans., i. 3S8. 
 
INHABITANTS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD. 
 
 39 
 
 mitted at his request to Professor Owen for examination. The 
 results of the comparisons thereupon instituted went to show that 
 there had formerly existed in South Africa, and from geological 
 evidence, probably, in a great salt-water lake or inland sea, since 
 converted into dry land, a race of reptilian animals presenting in 
 the construction of their skull characters of the crocodile, the 
 tortoise, and the lizard, coupled with the presence of a pair of huge 
 sharp-pointed tusks, growing downwards, one from each side of the 
 upper jaw, like the tusks of the mammalian morse or walrus. No 
 other kind of teeth were developed in these singular animals : the 
 lower jaw was armed, as in the tortoise, by a trenchant sheath of 
 horn. Some bones of the back, or vertebrae, by the hollowness of 
 the co-adapted articular surfaces, indicate these reptiles to have been 
 good swimmers, and probably to have habitually existed in water ; 
 but the construction of the bony passages of the nostrils proves 
 that they must have come to the surface to breathe air. 
 
 Some extinct plants allied to the Lepidodendron, with other 
 fossils, render it probable that the sandstones containing the 
 Dicynodont reptiles were of the same geological age as those that 
 have revealed the remains of the Labyrinthodonts in Europe. 
 
 The generic name Dicynodon is from the Greek words sig nif ying 
 “ two tusks or canine teeth.” Three species of this genus have 
 been demonstrated from the fossils transmitted by Mr. Bain. 
 
 The Dicynodon lacerticeps, or Lizard-headed Dicynodon, attained 
 the bulk of a walrus ; the form of the head and tusks is correctly 
 given in the restoration (No. 21) ; the trunk has been added 
 conjecturally, to illustrate the strange combination of characters 
 manifested in the head. 
 
 A second species, with a head so formed as to have given the 
 animal somewhat of the physiognomy of an owl, has been partially 
 restored at No. 22. 
 
» 
 
 BKABECRY ABU EVANS, EH INTERS, W H U'EFRI AE S. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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