Tlie existence near the Condyle of tlie left jaw of
Coralline, which is the only one I have ever seen in ti:
lias of Somerset, proves that this Dragon lay naked of
flesli and of everything else a long time upon the Ocean
Floor. So that had the sea been but ever so little disturbed
after the cruptiou of the animal gases, tbe unprotected
joints of the remaining carcase must have beeu
removed out of the order in which they stand.
As if also to satisfy us that the sea in which this dragon
died was waveless, and windless, and tideless, tlirough a
period of Months; or tliat it was so deep, tliat the winds
and tides, during all that time, failed to probe the bottom,
themaxillffi have been pierced and fed upon by some marine
ossipbngeous insects, whose ravages are palpable to this
day.
There are many otlier parasitic shells heaped upon the
surrounding marl, also indicative of the denuded situation
of the skeleton for a considerable time. And yet tbe
curious and most rare position of the snout, which rises at
an angle of 45“, would seem to deny the fact. But the
combinations of vapor generated within side of the beify,
and the oscillations of the Sea, are difficult to arrange and
harmonize with the presentations of many Sauri; so that
we liave ceased to speculate upon the forces by which and
in what manner this, or that, or the other dragon was
broken up, violated, and cast at length away. Reviewing
our whole Collection, and the circumstances in which
individual parU of it are found upon their stony bier,
we are at a loss to say whether the Seas they Emperored
were swept by Simoons and Tornado, or left to lull themselves
for ever. Perhaps, as the Brahmins tell, the earlier
conditions of Matter, before they formed so many complicated
alliances, indulged in alternate fits of rage, lashing
the Waves into Mountains, and of repose, realizing the
slumbers of the dead.
The Paddles of the Strongylostinus mark him in tbe most
decided manner. The first individual, which was obtained
by Miss Amiiiig, and deposited in the Bristol Plii-
losopLica! Institution, although very imperfect, and a still
less satisfactory fragment in the British Museum, determined
that fact.
The Plate before us represents a far more complete
remain than either; and substantiates new Generic pretensions,
not only the Paddles, and the egregious snout,
but the spine and ribs assuming a form entirely distinct
from that of ail the other Taninim. Nor is that a ll; the
snout itself thickened comparatively with that of Plate
XIII, indicates a different Species, while the pelvis and
the posterior paddles, compared with those of Plates XV,
and XVI, enhances the fact. As for the beautiful head
and the snout of Plate XIV, their teeth seem too heavy to
allow them to belong to the genus Strongylostinus, and
yet we can refer them to none other with a better grace.
Traversing the whole Physiological Circle of these
great Sea-dragons, we cannot avoid
upon
the Sexes, impossible though it now be that they should
for certain be ascertained. We have measured their
brain, recovered their eyes, their ears, their respiratory and
digestive Systems, but this escapes us still.
We prove the maximum length of the Oligostinus to have
approached one hundred feet, by a precious relic in tbe
British Museum, that it never exceeded twelve feet in the
other known genera, and but seldom reached even ten ;
aud by the Crocodile aud analogous Sauri make a safe
guess at the age of these Taninim; but the identification
of sexes with the once sexual condition nearly elude
us quite.
We have been haunted by an idea, generated by so
subtle a process, and vitalized by inductions so frail,
that it is impossible to set them all forth, that the Strongylostinus
of our theme is none other than the male Oligos-
tiuus. Their paddles are designed alike, and the narrow
radius they subscribe iu the fonner comparatively is
made up in a great measure by adaptations for an almost
inconceivable swiftness; tlie head is sharpened fortli, the
chest flattened, tlie oars lengthened and thinned outfthe
spine closely locked together, and the hind paddles
widened to check, when need be, the arrow-flight of the
monster to which they belong.
If Ichthyosauri were oviparous, of which there seems
scarcely a doubt, and if their instincts inclined tliem to
the Piscal Races rather than to Reptiles, the impregnation
of their ova may have been effected after the manner of
Fishes. An amphibious Creature like this would naturally
seek the Shallows in which to spawn, and tlie
ovarian vent placed (as we have seen in tlie Last Chapter)
so far posteriorly, aided the intention. The huge Oligostinus
may, therefore, have dropped her e g ^ many feet
above the level to which otherwise she could not come,
over which the attenuated Strongylostinus easily passed
in the act of vitalizing them.
Tbe other^co-sized Dragons were fitted to purposes and
a speed, sufficient for themselves ; and it c..o..m...e..s. up ^not
one half to that bestowed upon their rival the Strongy-
lostinus. Supposing the Oligostinus his slie-mate, the
gift at once explains itself, and clears up entirely the
Theory upon which our Nomenclature stands.
None other fact, or even suspicion of one, in the
whole range of our Sauria-ology, having ever questioned
this Theory in the least, and so many reasons being
found in favour of the sexual distinctions argued for, I
maybe permitted to add, tliat it eveiy
side, and approximates to i
mind.
solution entirely satisfactory
>F STH0NGTL09TINVS.
UnkDown
Species
Two Heads. PI. XIV...........
Slab. PI. XV.................................
Fragment, PI. XVI....................... ! ! ! !
Fragment. Bristol Institution, FoundbyMissAnning.
.Fragment. Brit. Mus..........................................
i l
C H A P T E R V.
Genus Pabamecostinus. napa,xmns, et o«tm». Oblongis ossibus in palmipedibus. Animaliutn Prisci Orbis Lacertifor-
im, in Pago Street, Provincia! Somersetensis, cura et opere Thomse Hawkins in lucctn
in genus.
udai viginti, apophysi spinal bifida. Tab. XVII.
II. Capile adancto, phalangibus ptilmipedum porreclis. 'Tab. XX.
m . . Rostra retuso, osse humeri curto. Tab. XXI.
IV. Rostro porrecto. XXIII.
T NOW beg to present my Reader the most perfect of
-i all the Annals belonging to Ichthyosauri. The labors
by which we are enabled to recover and perpetuate them
are not unlike those of Sir Humphrey Davy, ovei
the papyri of the long entombed Cities of old Latium.
Striving against tbe destructive weapons of Time, of fire,
of earth, of air, and water, with the most delicate tests
and a finished acumen, lie was enabled to save the Hearts
of some Cinerous Rolls of Herculaneum and Pompeii,
marvellously transmitted to these latter Days. In the
unequal contest many an invaluable Record, over which
the pale Scribe wasted his midnight lamp eighteen hundred
years ago, little dreaming of the fate which, alas
awaited them both, faded into Oblivion, with all its vainly
coveted, and maybe more precious than ruby page. The
rust of Time sometimes neutralizing itself, left a trophy
foi' his antagonist, who often in his turn outdoing himself,
surrendered spoils already won.
The same Time which so ruthlessly assails the works
and the monuments of man, was inspired witli a zeal for
the perpetuation of those which belong to the gods, really
startling, Tbe Vasty Cycles of Days since the Avatar of
Time have been consumed by him but for this end. The
Populations of the Old World seem to have lived that
Time might solemnize their obsequies, and Stamp the
foiled Seal of Eternity upon tlieir bones. Tlie acts and
Inscriptions of man dissolve into thin air, while the Races
co-temporary with adolescent Time continue for our own
and the years that are To Come. To touch the former
with a breath is to blot them out, while the last are hermetically
soldered down with stone, and coffined in the
Centres of the Eartli: so carefully guarded are they from
rude and sacriligious hands, that to unrol the Cerements
which bind them, it requires the most peculiar and
subtle Genius of Skill, and fingers tipped each one with
a most energetic soul.
But Time has a limit set upon his work; the magnificent
Natuie he is ever busy to perpetuate in all her rising,
heaving, proud, but sinking, and dying forms, and as
extremes often meet, so the Papyri and the Taninim have
both lost their cases and externals, by the indisposition
and contempt of Time on the one side, and iiis officiousness
on the other.
In cutting the hard, intractible limestone from the
involved Skeleton, hoiv many muscles, nerves, nay, the
Sensorium in which life couched and subsisted, is destroyed,
as effectually as the wisdom and wit of man for
ever lost in those lamented Scrolls. True, there continue
the traces, the stains of the once living flesh and blood, in
the softened and discolored stone; sometimes even the
fibres of the more cartilaginous tissues faintly present
themselves ; and the stomachic foeculæ not unfrequently
remain, but the fashion and bodily shape is fled, leaving
Moloch naked in all his deformity.
II. The mere indices of these things, because they have a
silent moral, are interesting for tliat very reason. The sublime
discloses itself only in the silence of which we speak,
when, by the most stupendous Efforts of Intellect, by the
revivification of Worlds, by the inhabitation thereof of ail
the Creatures which the laboring Soul can re-articulate,
we stand in a Presence which has not, nor ever shall have
one sympathy with ourselves ; those Worlds, those antipodal
Populations, that Presence passionless, and silent
dead ; I say the instruments of a few bones verify a Sublimity
before which no man can stand unappalled.
The present is so absolutely little when compared with
the dread Past, that these Reliquiæ derive an Attribute
from that circumstance to our Faculties as absolutely infinite,
The sight expires in the distance, our minds are
lost in the sweeping landscape, eternity for an horizon,
and the god of the scene silence all.
The Philosophic Ancients lived and acted under this
impression, carrying it on to the Unknown Future, in
which alone they could substantially realize a Personality.
And in this mood did they achieve for themselves that
Greatness which leave the Moderns pigmies, because we
lack the mental dignity by which it was accomplished.
For this reason, likewise, liave tlie Moderns, although
studious of forms, overlooked the Living Soul of Things,
disenchanting Life, and encumbering the Earth with the
most uninteresting Automatons imaginable. No Fawo,
no Satyr now, no shy Nymph frequents the grove, no
Dian courses the resounding hills ; all, all is unfrequent,
and desolate all. Enthusiasm, without which there can
be no sense of Truth, nor of fitness and beauty, seems as
extinct as the Sea-Dragons which here inspire it : tlieir
strange eloquent Remains bespeak a Chord in our breast,
which vibrates only to the Master Toucli : the subtle and
jealous gods of tbe vast Promontory of Time start at the
well-known sound, They seize, They seize me wholly.