and if the oracle, O Reader, be ambiguous, blame thy
Fortune in escaping the Pythonic furor, with its extatic
but exhausting delirium, its shiver, and wild exceutric
fate.
A long grey Cloud in tha far-west, covering many a Rood.
A Golden Sun Autumnal.
Golden Islands in the Deep Skies.
O my voluptuous heart, gushing soft music.
Olife! so profoundly fell.
Heaven above, around, beneath. Eternal.
See 1 in the long grey Cloud a Tanin in the Empyreal Ocean.
Suns, Systems, Time and Eternity cluster around him.
lo. lo. Chase him on Wings of tlie Mighty Spheres.
Flee away, Time. I follow.
Both fledged to the same Stroke.
Across Desart Skies.
A million years. A millioB Essays of Wiog. Each from one
Vortice to another.
0 weary Wings, and Space dreary ever.
Sea-Dragons I Chase them in tlie Expanse of Heavens.
Wild Lucifer Spirits our Companions through all Immensity.
The Spirit of Prophecy is not dead. Nor do I consider
it at all remarkable, that these waking dreams preceded
the discovery of two Taninim, about to be introduced.
A subject must be esteemed for iU consequences, and who
can sum the Legions of thoughts, which these Sea-
dragons evoked, and shall yet evoke in our own and
many other breasts ? Were we to abandon ourselves to
all the more occult influences of the mind, it would be
elevated to a pitch of sensibility, and an acuteness of
perception unspeakable; nor do I slmn to avow a habit,
which raises one above the mortal conditions of Earth, if
indulged in a right Royal Heart. And what, quotha,
are the Skeletons which interest us so much, stripped
of the habiliments of E ld ; or wliat is Kingly Power
without the symbols, or the Heavens themselves without
the Dominions which rule them withal.
But we must refer our reader to tbe Paramecostinus
of Plate XVII, which supersedes a former one, (Vide Memoirs,)
rejected because the right paddle of the subject it
was taken from is improperly reversed. This beautiful
Skeleton was found at our neighbouring Street, and the
following extracts, copied from my note-book, explain
the attendant circumstances.
“ 183-5, June. John Steel announced a fossil, lying in
Mogs quarry, in tlie thick marl, twenty-feet from the
surface.
“ Proceeding to extricate it, we ascertained that the fail
was covered by one of the facets of the quarry, which
cannot he removed for some months.
“ John Mog, personally, not unlike .Esop, hobbling into
the pit, and touching his hat with a useful crutch, requested
to speak. “ YourSarvant, Zir, how much be I to
have vor the faussil V
‘“ You know, John, I always give the master one half,
and his man who chances to find it the other.’
“ ‘ Very well, Zir.—Thank’ee, Zir.’
“ ‘We must leave the tail here, until we work out the
ground.'
‘“ Yes, Zir.’
“ Thursday. Friday, Tuesday. Dissected the Skull and
Snout, laying bare an eye deeply sunk in his socket; and
identifying it with the Paramecostinus in the Britisli
Museum, by the shape and number of the teeth, the well-
defined nasal Foramen, and the general outline.
“ Wednesday. The Cervix, if indeed Ichthyosauri have
any, ratlier the Atlas, axis, and a few succeeding vertebræ,
are in their right place: but the sub-vertebral
wedges are overlaid.
“ Thursday. Encountered a stubborn group of the
marginal rays of the anterior paddles, heretofore thought
to be spines of a Cidaris, which I greatly regretted, but
was obliged to sacrifice.
“ Friday. Developed that beautiful pectoral paddle.
“ Monday, Tuesday, to Saturday. The Seventh and
five succeeding dorsal vertebræ are twisted round, presenting
file spinous fossæ, altliough luckily the apophyses
themselves continue almost in tlieir proper place : the
entire twelve are but little distinguished from one another
in shape, but they decrease somewhat in size receding
from the occiput. The Sternal arch and the whole subsidiary
Apparatus is remarkably strong, and perfect.
■ July, Tuesday, Wednesday. The anterior long ribs
dive right through the matrix, an unusual accident; and
le phalanges of the left paddle are dislocated by tbe
superincumbent pressure which occasioned it.
“ Saturday, Monday, to Wednesday night. Now then
the Spine enlarges, the apophyses spread, the ribs resume
their order, and chocolate colored laminæ indicate the once
abdominal fluids. The gradually emerging beauty of this
Tanin so possesses me, that I shall order my lamp, to enjoy
another sight of it before I go to bed.
“ Thursday. Fortieth vertebra, forty first, second,
third, superb !
“ Friday and Saturday. There are tbe posterior paddles,
like all that preceded them, perfect. The Pelvis maintains
its articulation, as did the Sternum before it. Here
also the spine acquires its maximum long diameter.”
The quarry having been at length worked farther back,
the journal continues,
“ Oct. Friday. An entirely new feature presents itself:
the receding caudal Vertebræ disclose double spinous
apophyses, mounting the twenty bones anterior to the first
break of the tail. No suspicion of any such thing ever
occurred to us ; no Ichthyosaurus ever indicated such a
fact before. All the other individuals known have these
spines a little thicker perhaps than any of tlieir relations,
but the difference leads to a mere nothing. Here we
have bifid spines, for what purpose? to support a fin?
Now a fin comprises, besides its erector and compressor
muscles, at least a cartilaginous, if not an osseous frame,
upon which to exercise them : other more perishable
substance.? than cartilage have left marks behind them in
this very marl. In one or two Saurians we bave even
fancied that their skin, their mere outline of Form were
indicated, if not to the eye, to that manual touch with
which they certainly came in contact. ”
In the elaboration of several tails we have been unable
to detect the least proof of a fin. Nothing due to our
chisel ever advanced pretension to any such member.
The multiplication of these apophyses then was manifestly
appointed as a balance, the cushion of flesh which
clothed them assisting its consequence, mounted probably
by a cuticular fringe, which may have been lengthened and
widened out upon the tail, as shown in our frontispiece.
We have remarked the nearly equal size of the first
twelve vertebræ of the back. In the several genera, nay,
all other Species, it will most probably be found,
that the so-called neck is more attenuated than that of the
Person now before us. His Cranium is very enlarged, as
is also the other fore-part of the Skeleton, His aspect is
stiff, fore-right, and heavy, demanding a compensation of
some,decided sort. These double processes afford it at
once, while the whole tail, auxiliary by its just proportions
of clievron and other joints, refute the idea of a
proper fin, by the equilibrium in which it holds the dependant
whole, as well as supersede the necessity of one
by the curious rudder-like provision which we have demonstrated
in it before.
Here then we have anotlier Ichthyosaurus with a novelty
of contrivance peculiarly his own; so marked a difference
is itself sufficient to particularize liim from all others upon
Record. There are individuals which at first blush appear
to be tlie same identical Species, disproved by this
very singularity. In truth, it has never occurred to us to
find a Saurian undistinguished from any preceding one,
either in the number or figure of certain bones. A Species
starts forth in every new individual, or at least differences,
which belong, no doubt, occasionally to the Sexes themselves,
about whicli we can of course only speculate.
The skeleton before us is altogether unique: he is the
longest ever found in Somerset, and lacks not one the
least joint: His color remains unchanged by the lapse of
many Ages; his Animus survives in his attitude, discoursing
most eloquent things. The Profound, the Solitary
Seas he haunted, the appetites he accomplished, the
brassy Skies he saw, the Soulless World he ruled, the
unjoyous Times, the unchecked lusts this dragon knew,
crowd they' Memories in his ribbed boat, which, tracking
the wide Oceans of years, lands them at last on our
Modern Shores.
The fleeting Generations of Men shall pass away and
be forgotten, while the Lessons which these awful retrospections
teach them will continue until the absorption of
all Truth by the ONE, innate, adorable Being, the Almighty
Lord and Father of us all.
Species II. Capite adaucto, phalangibuspulmipedum poiTeclis.
Tab. XX.
The Dragon to which we now solicit attention, Plate
XX, fulfilled the second Dream of the god : whether
Pythius, or the one witliin us, or whatever god lie be, the
promise was fulfilled.
It is but the paralysis of a single nerve wliich shuts us
out from the Real World, leaving us at the mercy of the
wingless Sciolists, who know not wliere to find its threshold.
If we could recur to our original Selves, we should
recover an Innateness identified with the whole Universe
of Mind, and Magazines of Processes reaching to the very
Limits of all created Intelligencies.
The prepossessions, the instincts of our Soul, are faint
and dubious by reason of a disease which many of the
later Doctors liave sorely misunderstood. They have
sought excuses in the Constitution instead of in the
Crime of Things; and forgetting they have no Diploma,
prescribe, in the old Pagan Formula, only nostrums to a
credulous Race.
The Scriptores of History and of Heaven, which, vindicating
Jehovah, set forth the Evil under which Creation
groans, are put aside because they belie the Vanities of a
Fickle Age. The grand Powers of Thought conferred
upon primal Adam, and propagated through his descendants,
in their several, but a las! waning degrees, are
denied to the Fathers of Nations, and in pretence appropriated
by a Posterity of which they are ashamed. Genesis
first, because it insists upon the to us super-human proportions
of Adam, and the qualifications of the first-born
men, in Sciences whose names even are now unknown, no
less than in all those lower Mechanical and Material arts
about which the Moderns plume themselves so absurdly ;
and all History is next declined, which, treating of demigods,
and of their MonumenU, refute the vain glory of
our degenerate Times.
Utility is the European watchword, while but few
know the use of anything whatever in alliance with the
higher Interests of Mankind. The most common but invaluable
instruments of the Adamities for Communion
with tlic glorious Worlds, from which we are cut so entirely
off, are the least valued of any which they have
bequeathed. They have rusted so long, that to “ The
Masses” theyare almost irrevocably lost; while the Socrates
and his attendant Famulus, which sometimes appear,
encounter the scornful finger, and the bitter hemlock of
Society at every turn.
The sub-stratum of visible Man conceals ores of Virtues
beyond price, which are, nevertheless, overlooked and contemned
by the mean Spirit of the present Hour. Those
who diligently study and work them out, enrich themselves
thereby, while the varieties of “ Jaspar, Sapphire, Chalcedony,
Emerald, Sardonyx, Sardius, Chrysolite, Beryl,
Topaz, Chrysoprasus, Jacinth, and Amethyst, and Pearl,
and pure Gold,” are each one of them sufficient for him
who happily obtains it.
This Tanin then, of which we so caught the projecting
Shadows, was found at Street. In the bottom of the quarry
eighteen feet deep, in a thick bed of Lias Stone, there it
lay long buried and lost. But the Fates brought a workman
to the spot, showed liim a glimpse of the Dragon, of
which they had taken such care, and directed Mercury to
our door.
How did the poor man’s heart flutter, responsive to
mine audible own, when first I saw the tomb in which
my Treasure lay hid. Poor simpleton; his quivered
liarslily to the blow of Dives, ours vibrated to an
Angel liand. Would we realize a Picture of a pure Idea
and its antipode, there it stood ; a storm incited by Ignorance
aud want, resolving itself into a .shower of pelf, on
the one hand ; a Hurricane of thought, personless and
Ideal sweeping joyfully, on the other, originating in one
and the same point, the Dragon.
Specifically this Ichthyosaurus diflers from any other
in our Collection of this Genus, the most on account of
his head; while the paddles are distinguished from those
of the preceding Skeleton by more elongated phalanges.
The tail presents the general Rule in all its force, while
the arc it describes is apparently less significant than the
break, and sudden twist which mark the Polyostinus of
Plate VII.
The space between tlie Skull and the left paddle preserves
traces of an animal matter so remarkable, that I
have no doubt the whole abdominal contents were poured
forth upon that spot; the moment our chisel came there, it