Petrifactions and Their Teachings: Or, A Hand-book to the Gallery of Organic Remains of the British Museum |
What people are saying - Write a review
We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
ancient animal appears arch base beautiful beds belong birds body bones British caudal chalk characters clay collection column composed consists contains corresponding covered cranium deposits described discovered distinct dorsal Edition England entire examples existing extinct extremity feet femur figured fishes formation fossil four fragments genera genus Geology head HISTORY Iguanodon imbedded inches indicate interesting Island Isle known lateral length Lign limestone lower lower jaw mammalia margin marked Memoir middle Museum nature nearly numerous observed obtained occur organs original Owen perfect placed plants plates pointed portion posterior present probably processes Professor recent referred remains remarkable reptiles resemble ribs rock Room saurians scales seen shells side skeleton skull South species specimens stems stone strata structure surface Sussex tail teeth tertiary thick Tilgate Forest tooth Trans transverse trees upper vertebræ Wall-case Wealden
Popular passages
Page 201 - A stranger yet to pain ? I feel the gales that from ye blow A momentary bliss bestow, As waving fresh their gladsome wing My weary soul they seem to soothe, And, redolent of joy and youth, To breathe a second spring.
Page xi - Nature will be reported. All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain ; the river its channel in the soil; the animal its bones in the stratum ; the fern and leaf their modest epitaph in the coal.
Page 344 - ... darting it down at the fish which happened to float within its reach. It may, perhaps, have lurked in shoal water along the coast, concealed among the seaweed, 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 suddenness and agility...
Page 344 - ... ichthyosaurus to cut through the waves. May it not, therefore, be concluded, (since, in addition to these circumstances, its respiration must have required frequent access of air,) that it swam upon, or near the surface ; arching back its long neck like the swan, and occasionally darting it down at the fish which happened to float within its reach?
Page 344 - ... swan, and occasionally darting it down at the fish which happened to float within its reach ? 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...
Page 223 - The combination of such characters, some, as the sacral ones, altogether peculiar among Reptiles, others borrowed, as it were, from groups now distinct from each other, and all manifested by creatures far surpassing in size the largest of existing reptiles, will, it is presumed, be deemed sufficient ground for establishing a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles, for which I would propose the name of Dinosaurio*.
Page 98 - It is now covered by a thin layer of sand when exposed at low water. . . Although bones of several species of Moa, especially of the largest kinds, have been collected from this locality in considerable numbers and in great perfection, yet as the bed is rapidly diminishing from the inroads of the sea, there is great reason to fear that it will be entirely washed away, without yielding to the palaeontologist all the desired information respecting the extinct animals whose relics it enshrines; for...
Page iv - Museum, as proofs of the genius of artists, and power and riches of nations now past away, with how much deeper feeling of admiration must we consider those grand monuments of nature, which mark the revolutions of the globe ; continents broken into islands ; one land produced, another destroyed ; the bottom of the ocean become a fertile soil ; whole races of animals extinct ; and the bones and...
Bibliographic information
| Title | Petrifactions and Their Teachings: Or, A Hand-book to the Gallery of Organic Remains of the British Museum Volume 6 of Bohn's scientific library |
| Author | Gideon Algernon Mantell |
| Publisher | H. G. Bohn, 1851 |
| Length | 496 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |