a pruning knife. An animal seventy-five feet in with a mouth containing perhaps more than sixty eth, with a disposition like that of the crocodile, must resented a spectacle of which we postdiluvians can ut a faint conception.

formation of Stonesfield, where these remains oconsists of a sandy slate, about six feet thick, lying several strata of limestone, of different kinds, and Forty feet from the surface.

anodon. This animal approached in structure, more to the Iguana, a large species of lizard, found in the Indies, than to any other species. Its length was besixty and seventy feet.

ier pronounced this reptile to have been the most ar and extraordinary of all the antediluvian wonders covered. Its great peculiarity consists in the form eeth, which shows, that notwithstanding its saurian was a herbivorous animal, in which it differed from lizard tribes.

hyosaurus and Plesiosaurus. These are two genera ularly formed sea lizards. Ichthyosaurus is derived vo Greek words, and signifies marine lizard. Plecus means lizard-like.

-se, among all the fossil animals that have been discoare most calculated to surprise the naturalist, by their esemblance to any individuals now living, and by ingular combinations of structure.

he Ichthyosaurus we see the muzzle of a dolphin, th of a crocodile, the head and breast of a lizard, the

s of a turtle, and the backbone of a fish.

he Plesiosaurus we have the same turtle-like padlizard's head, and a long neck, like the body of a

hyosaurus. This fossil skeleton is represented by -No entire skeleton of this animal has yet been

The circle tion of

it stren

1; but fragments having been collected in the limeformations in various parts of England, and the le having been joined, and the absent parts supplied carved wood, a skeleton, such as is here represented, mposed. It appears that England was the principal lchre of this animal, few of its remains having been vered otherwhere.

length, this animal was about twenty feet, and theredoes not in this respect, compare with several of the diluvian reptiles. But its singular combinations of cture, together with the vast number of bones compoits skeleton, have rendered it one of the most curious interesting objects to naturalists which has been preed.

he vertebræ amount to about ninety in number, and number of pieces of bone contained in each paddle, is

These are flat, and placed in contact with each r, like Mosaic work, or a tesselated pavement. It was amphibious animal, but lived chiefly in the water, as dicated by the form of its paddles, which hardly could e permitted it even to crawl upon the shore. It is bable, therefore, that although it was an air-breathing mal, if it had the misfortune to be cast upon the shore, ust have remained motionless and died, as whales and hins do, under like circumstances.

The teeth of this animal were about half an inch in gth, sharp pointed, but not curved like those of the galosaurus; their number was thirty in each jaw. But the most striking feature in the appearance of this nge animal, was the enormous size of his eyes, and ich must have given him a most terrific physiognomy. Fig. 56.

The sclerotic, or outer coat of the eye, was beset by a cle of bony pieces, as seen in the adjoining representan of the skeleton of the head, probably in order to give

racter common to birds, tortoises, and lizards, to the sion of crocodiles and fishes; and hence, one of the s by which it is proved that this animal belonged to zard tribe. The comparative size of the eye socket, compared with the other parts of the head, will give me idea of the frightful appearance of this animal; Il the long rows of curved teeth with which his jaws tudded, of his power to seize and hold his prey. the dimensions of the head, we may suppose that eyes were fully as broad as a tea saucer, being proat least six inches in diameter.

esiosaurus. "This genus," says Dr. Ure, "is enEnglish, and solely due to the sagacity of Mr. Core." Some vertebræ, mixed with those of the croe and icthyosaurus, in the lias of the environs of ol, appeared to him to differ from those of both aniFrom this circumstance, he was led to make furexaminations, and these were continued until a suft number of bones had been obtained to show the form ize of this strange antediluvian.

Fig. 57.

e most singular part of its construction, is the ime length of the neck, and the disproportion of this, other parts of the system. This is composed of a er number of bones than the neck of any known anıexceeding, in this respect, even the swan, which greater number than any existing species.

e most entire specimen of the plesiosaurus yet found, t which came from Lyme Regis. This relic is conin several blocks of stone, which were once conus, and which fit each other exactly. The bones the posture which they would have taken, had the

l been crushed by a heavy weight from above. Its his nine feet six inches. The number of vertebræ nety, of which forty belong to the neck.

e plesiosaurus, in the living state, must have present

neck resembling a large serpent, with the tail cut off, he remaining half fastened to a trunk, the proporof which, differed from those of many other animals. tail, especially, by its shortness, could scarcely remind of a reptile, and hence this animal must have displayform so much the more singular, as its extremities, those of the ichthyosaurus, were genuine fins, similar ose of the whale tribe.

hat this animal was aquatic in its habits, is evident its fins, and that its element was the sea, may be lly inferred, from the marine remains, with which its s are everywhere associated. Its motion on the like that of the ichthyosaurus, must have been awk1 and difficult, and its long neck would impede its ress through the water. It was an air-breathing aniand Mr. Conybeare suggests whether it might not e swam along the surface, arching its neck, like the , and now and then darting down its head to catch fish below.

BONE CAVERNS.

Professor Buckland, in consequence of the publication his great work, "Reliquiæ Diluviana," has made the ect of osseous caverns highly interesting and instruc

Before the appearance of that work, little was wn on this subject, nor was it, indeed, considered by logists as of much importance. The bones of some mals found in caves, had occasionally attracted notice, no one appears to have inquired how, or under what cumstances, they could have found their way into such ces. Nor was it until after the celebrated cavern of kdale was discovered and described, that the contents other caverns became the subjects of geological invesation.

We have already given some account of the Kirkdale e under the article "Change of Climate," for the pure of showing that England was once the native counof the elephant, rhinoceros, and hyena.

Since the description of that cave, notices of others, ntaining bones, have become so numerous, that we have room even for a catalogue of their names and places;

s of producing a body of geological evidence of
importance.

appears that all extensive limestone formations, con-
more or less such caverns as that of Kirkdale, some
nich are of great extent, and have long been admired
e brilliancy of their stalactites, and the pillar-like
which they assume.
The island of Crete contains

at cavern, which has long been the wonder of tra-
-s, and throughout the same island, Tournefort says,
is a world of Caverns.

the limestone districts of England, these caves abound. Derbyshire alone, Mr. Farey enumerates twenty-eight rkable caves, and as many fissures locally called ke holes," or swallow holes," from their swallowp the streams and brooks, which sometimes in that ct disappear suddenly, without, so far as is known, rising again to the surface.

66

66

the bone caverns of Germany, Cuvier says, 'noths more truly curious, than the new theatre to which I bout to transport my readers. Numerous grottos, antly decorated with crystalline stalactites of every succeeding each other to a great extent, through the of the mountains, communicating together by openso narrow that a man can hardly proceed by crawln his hands, yet with their floors all bestrewed with nous heaps of bones of animals of every size-form ubtedly, one of the most remarkable phenomena h the fossil kingdom can present to the meditations e geologist, more especially, when we consider, that cene of mortality is repeated in a great many places, through far distant lands. No wonder then, that vaults of death have become the objects of research g the ablest naturalists, and their bony relics have often described and figured."

ior to these philosophical inquiries, however, these were famed among the populace, and were long dug nd sold to apothecaries as the bones of the fossil uniand who again portioned them out to their patients vereign remedies in various diseases. There is no but this strange traffic, contributed mainly to the tigation of old caves, and the discovery of new ones, before geologists took the subject in hand.

ving already given such an account of the Kirkdale as our limits will allow, and to which the reader is