L I S T O F P L A T E S .
ALL THE SAIUU, EXCEPT THE SUBJECT OF PLATE IV, ARE DEPOSITED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM,
It may be proper to sUile that the Author, having published an Imperial Folio, in 1834, entitled, “ Momoirs of ichthyosauri and Plesioaauri
«•ith tvventy-eigbt Plates," (copied from specicuene in his Collection of Fossil Oi^nic Remains.) seised that opportunity to print off some h.intlreJs
more than could be required for that work; foreseeing tl.e invaluable uses they render the present one. All Histories, but more especially ti.oso
of extinct Races, which are arrived at by the slowest degrees, havo been improved by supplements, some have subserved their supplomonts, and as
m the present inslaneo, even meiged into, and by that means, elevated it into the Real History.
Our Nomenclature has been carefully pruned in the Volume before us; but since tho titles attached to certain of the Plates boar some fruit, we
leave them thore in tbe old position.
ICHTHYOSAURI,
XIII.
XIV,
Froxtispibcb. TLe Sea-Dragons us they lived- By
Marlin.
Dr^oii from Lyme R(^is. Discovered in 1835.
Huge Dragon from Lyme Regis. 1832.
Sternal Remains of a Drt^on from Lymo Regis.
Head of a Dr^ou from Lyme Regis.
Outlines of teetli, and cervical vertebrm with their sub-
wedges,^ of Ichthyosauri.
POLTOSTINUS.
A perfect Dragon from Lyme Regis. 1333.
Head of a Dragon from a Village near Bristol.
Frt^ment of a Dragon from tbe viJl^e of Street, So-
Head of an old Dragon from Street.
Head, from Street.
STIlOKCTIJaSTlKUS.
Dragon from Street. 1837.
Unique Head of a Dragon from Street.
Parts of Heads.
A Slab of Lias Stone witli Remains from Kcinton,
Somerset,
XVI, Fragment from Street.
XVII. A Dragon from the lias Shale of Street. I83&.
XVIII. Head from Street,
XIX. Parts ofHeads.
XX. D r ^ n , in Stone, from Street. 1836.
XXI. Dragon, in Shale, from Street. 1836.
XXII. Paddle from Street.
XXIII. Remains ofa Dn^oii from Street.
PLESIOSAURI.
OEKUS TRITAR80STINUS.
XXIV. Dr^oii Plesiosaurus, from Street. Discovered in 1831,
XXV. Dragon of an unknown Gemisfrom Walton.
XXVI. Sternum and otlicr Bones ofa giant Plesiosaurus.
PENTATARSOSTIXt/S.
XXVII. Dragon from Street. 1834.
IIEXATA RSOSTINUS.
XXVIII. Dragon from Street. 1837.
XXIX Sea-Dragons, Ichthyosauri and
XXX i Author’s Collections, not yet trans-
L fcrrcd to the British Museum.
C H A P T E R I.
C o n t e n ts Remains o f e.vtincl Races inscribed with certain Frapnenlary Truths; The Moderns s])eculating upon
the ancient Earth, as a mere physical theorem, revert to Pagan Philosophies, which these remains protest Scripture
ajul Tradition insist upon the perfection o f A dam^The opijtion that the first men were o f inferior power
confuted by their monuments, the Pillars of Seth, and Cyclopean Ruins ; The Archaic Records the oldest extant,
and Saiichoniatho, Berosus, Manetho, and others, quoted in proof — Measured by our Notions of Time, that
which is Past stretches out i7ito Eternity—Time reined in by Scripture and History, the Earth too offering proofs
o f a Beginning and o f a Supreme Cause.— The infidel argument, that animals and vegetables started into existence
at the same instant, answered.— O f the Light mentioned in Genesis, chap. i. ver. 3, and proofs thereof— The fossil
eyes o f all extinct animals formed tike our own, skewing that they used the same light as ourselves, and, judging
from the colossal proportions o f the Primitive Flora, itflourished in a heat which animals could not breathe— Succession
o f Beasts, and o f the i-ecent Ci-eation of Man— O f Eden; Geologists challenged to produce a carnivorous
terrestrial animal which could molest it—Astronomy attests the pacific conditions o f one (that) epoch o f the Globe;
Every region o f the Earth e.vhibits numberless skeletons o f contemporaneous herbivorous animals— The Fall;
Attended by all kinds o f calamity ; Fierce beasts; Climatdl and other terrible revolutions in the depeiident world—
Atalantis, Europe, and Africa, the girdle o f the world traversed by the historical giants, who built the stupendous
inonuments before alluded to— The carcasses of the Carnivora proportioned to the Titans they warred upon, and
nearly extirpated— The Flood— The Backbones of the Globe broken, from the Poles downward-The Boulders
and other drift found over all the Earth in a certain liiie, show the manner and Universality o f the Deluge—
The Ark admitted only the domestic Races o f Animals—Scripture quoted in proof thereof— Recapitulat ion.
IT will have been sufficiently understood by the Dedi
catory page of the Present, as well as from a former
Memoir of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, published
1834, that our first intention was limited to the effectuating
a vast Collection of the Organized Relics of th
Old World, in the British Museum, without reference to
this or to that Theory of the Nature of Things, Past,
Now, or To Come. To wander across the desert Continents
of Time, in search of the bleached Skeletons of
extinct Nations; to evoke from tlie dust of Oblivion the
countless Generations which have passed away from the
Earth for ever, were the objects we had originally in view.
But Time, emulating that Eternity whence he emerges,
seems to have wholly occupied himself in perpetuating
the Creatures of his passing Reign, in the stony missals
of the Dead. In recovering, therefore, the Effigies of
extinguished Races, we have been tempted to secure also
the inscriptions which accompanied them, quaint and
intricate althougli they be, and of a style so old, that tlie
appreciation of its Truthfulness and Beauty is almost
lost.
It has been so long the Fashion to consider Physical
and Moral Evil apart one from the other, that we are in
danger of reverting to the Epicurean Philosophy; nor
has anything contributed to this more than the study of
the Ancient Earth, considered as a mere physical Theorem,
by many laborious arguments in which the Moderns
toil to the same conclusions which circulated in Pagan
Greece and Rome.
But the Awful Wrecks compassing us round about, and
restless Eid murmuring ever in our ear, and abhorrent
Heaven himself, eclipsed, but not extinguished, protest
against the cheerless Spirit of Knowledge, by which all
Things are referred to insensate Matter and icy Dream;
and beckon us from the Paradise of Fools, within whose
Magic Circle so many Souls havo madly staked and lost
their all,
1. The Fortunes of Mankind have an Orbit, the perihelion
being with Adam, the aphelion with the Flood.
Perfect in the Image of his Maker, stored with all Goodness,
our ancestral dcmi-god wielded the Ministers of
Power obedient to his unquestioned Will. Such is the
Basis of Scripture, and such also is the legitimate deduction
of History. But incontinent Liberality deceiving
Faith, Reason, empty with the fumes of that same
flattery by which we originally fell, cometli of the unhallowed
embrace, and finding in the crust of the Earth
certain animal Types which ascend in the progress of
Time, from the more simple to the complex; stealing a
Sophism from “ The Garden” of the Vulgar Greeks,
avers that Matter, like “ the Nilotic Mud,” generated
Creatures with the mere dawn of life, which improving
upon themselves, at last elicited a man; a mau like to
all previous existences, imperfect, rudiraental, savage.
We care not how much the offensive Thesis is laughed
at in the person of grotesque Lamark; its essential principles
are sedulously upheld by every ancillary that can
be impressed covertly in its hollow cause. Here then,
beloved Reader, in the first stage, we unmask an assassin
which waylays the Doctrines of Sin, and of the Righteousness
of God.
The experience, the reputation of all Nations, all
Climes challenge, and indignantly denounce any such ■
an opinion. The political and other Sciences in which the
ancients so infinitely excelled ourselves; the Cyclopean
Mounds of Antediluvian Masonry, and the Memory of
Seth, co-equal with his haught Pillars, bequeathed to
latest Posterity : These imperishable Towers, misnamed,
in the teeth of Josephus, tbe Pyramids, and these en-
duringWalls, vainly christened Pelasgian, were the work
ofemphatically the sons of Jehovah ; Their beginning hid
in the hoar of ages, puny men now peer about and around
them, and actually correct and square their own imperfect
traditionary lore of the Firmament by the Measure