Gideon Algernon Mantell

“ Slowly, imperceptibly, but incessantly, are the vital energies of the feeblest and minutest animal and vegetable existences separating from the element in which they live, the most enduring of mineral substances, silex—fabricating it into structures of the most exquisite forms and sculpturing, and thus adding to the accumulations of countless ages, which make up the sedimentary strata of the crust of the globe. ”

“ In the succeeding eras, the Lias, Oolite, Wealden, and Cretaceous, swarms of reptiles of numerous genera and species everywhere prevail; reptiles fitted to fly through the air, to roam over the land, to inhabit the lakes, rivers, and seas; and yet not one identical with any existing forms! These beings gradually decline in numbers and species as we approach the close of the secondary periods, and are immediately succeeded in the eocene epoch, by as great a preponderance of warm-blooded vertebrata—birds and mammalia—as exists at the present time ”

“ But the great series of ancient coal-formations present a remarkable uniformity of character, not only throughout Europe, but also in America and other parts of the world. A coal-field (as a group of strata of this kind is commonly termed) , is generally composed of a series of layers of coal, clay, shale, and sand, of variable thicknesses, based on grit or limestone, abounding in marine shells and corals; and the most remarkable phenomenon is the constant presence beneath every bed of coal, of a thick stratum of earthy clay, and of a layer of shale or slaty clay above it. ”

“ A mere heated aqueous solution of silica, under a high pressure, is sufficient to explain the phenomenon of the silicification of organic structures. Mr. Dana states that "a crystal of calc-spar in such a fluid, being exposed to solution from the action of the heated water alone, the silica deposits itself gradually on a reduction of temperature, and takes the place of the lime, atom by atom, as soon as set free. Every silicified fossil is an example of this pseudo-morphism; but there seems to be no union of the silica with the lime, for silicate of lime is of rare occurrence." ”

“ Fossil Shells.
Fig. 1. A single valve, viewed interiorly, of a fine shell (Panopæa Aldrovandi, of Faujas St. Fond) from the Pleistocene or Newer Tertiary strata, that form a chain of low hills near Palermo, in Sicily. The shells in these deposits comprise almost all the genera and species that now inhabit the Mediterranean. They occur in the most beautiful state, deprived only of their colour; and groups are often met with of extreme elegance. ”

“ Aware of the necessity of devoting the few leisure hours, which the duties of my calling left at my disposal, to some rational and amusing occupation, I have always cultivated, more or less assiduously, some branch of art or science, and thence acquired an enthusiastic admiration for the beauties of nature, and an insatiable curiosity to pry into the mysteries of the natural world. ”

“ Any palæontologist who saw only the collections sent over by my son, must have been astonished at their extent and variety. I may venture to affirm that such an assemblage of the fossil bones of birds was never before seen in Europe: nearly fifteen hundred specimens, collected from various parts of the country, with scarcely any intermixture of the remains of any other class;—it is a phenomenon as startling as the exclusively reptilian character of the fauna of the Wealden epoch. ”

“ On the contrary, throughout the immense accumulations of the spoils of the ancient islands and continents, amidst innumerable relics of reptiles of various orders and genera, a few jaws and bones of two or three kinds of extremely small marsupials, and the bones of a species of wader, are the sole indications of the presence of the two grand classes of Aves and Mammalia, which now constitute the chief features of the terrestrial zoology of almost all countries. ”

“ Furthermore, still fewer indeed can be referred to any living species; for it is not the fern-like leaf of a plant, the palm-like cicatrix, or the cane-like joint of a stem, that will suffice to identify them with those tribes of the vegetable kingdom. The whole anatomy of the plant must be studied. The subject has, indeed, been begun by Professor Martins, in his comparison of certain fossil stems of plants with those of the living plants growing in the Brazils, but the study is as yet too new to afford certain results. ”

“ The external parts of the seed or fruit exist, indeed, in a fossil state, but they are almost always insulated from the other organs. If leaves are found, it is almost certain that scarcely any portion of the stem will be attached to them; if the external parts of a trunk, then very rarely any vestiges of the branches and foliage. And when traces of the internal structure can be discovered, it is seldom that the external character of the stem remains. ”

“ From the numerous facts relating to the fossil remains of birds from our Antipodean colony, that have now been brought under the consideration of the naturalists and geologists of this country, we may safely conclude, that at a period geologically recent, but of immense antiquity in relation to the human inhabitants of those Islands, New Zealand was densely peopled by tribes of colossal struthious bipeds, of species and genera that have long since become extinct. ”

“ A splendid specimen of another species of Hydatica, spread out on the surface of the coal-shale, as if expanded on the bosom of the lake in which it grew: the length of the original, a part of which only is figured in the plate, was eight feet, five inches.
This species is named by Mr. Artis, Hydatica prostrata. The stem is jointed, and slightly striated; the joints are formed with irregular sutures, whence arise tufts of linear leaves resembling those of our common grasses. ”

“ If the habits of the plants which produced these fossil fruits were similar to those of the recent Nipa, it will account for their amazing abundance in the London Clay of the Isle of Sheppey; which formation, from the great variety of fossilized stems and branches, mixed up with asteria, mollusca, and conchifera of numerous marine and fresh-water genera, is strikingly characterized as having been the delta of an immense river, which probably flowed from near the Equator towards the spot where these interesting remains are now deposited. ”

“ In the Welsh coal-field, through a depth of 1,200 feet, there are sixty beds of coal, each of which lies on a stratum of clay abounding in Stigmariæ. In the Appalachian coal formation of the United States, the same phenomena occur.
Thus it appears that the under-clay is the natural soil in which the roots (Stigmariæ) of the Sigillariæ and Lepidodendra grew; the coal above it is composed of the carbonized stems and foliage of those trees; and the roof or coal-shale is formed by the leaves and branches of a forest overwhelmed and buried beneath the transported detritus of distant rocks. ”

“ Fossil Star-Fishes and Echini.
The radiated animals popularly called Star-fishes, from their stellular figure, are so abundant along our sea shores, that the nature of the common five-rayed species (Asterias, or Uraster rubens) [47] must be familiar to most of my readers. This species belongs to the group in which the rays are elongated, and far exceed in length the diameter of the disk; in another subdivision (the Goniaster, or Cushion-star) , the body is angular, and the lobes or rays are short, and do not exceed in length the diameter of the body. ”

“ Fossil Stems and Seed-vessels.
Fig. 1. The strobilus or cone of an extinct family of plants whose remains are very abundant in the coal strata, and which have largely contributed to the formation of the mineral fuel now become so indispensable to the necessities and luxuries of man. There are several kinds, and although there can be no doubt that they are the seed-vessels of the Lepidodendra with which they are associated, yet but few species are identified with their parent trees. The specimen figured is the Lepidostrobus ornatus of Lindley and Hutton. ”

“ VI. The Carboniferous Deposits, or Coal Measures.—The various deposits of Coal have manifestly been formed under different local circumstances. Some have been peat-bogs, to which repeated additions have been made by successive subsidences of the land; others have been deposited at the bottom of lakes and rivers, and these are associated with remains of fresh-water shells and Crustacea; others have accumulated in the abyss of the ocean, having been formed by the drifting and engulfing of immense rafts of trees and other vegetable matter, like those of the Mississippi ”

“ The beautiful model of this most interesting fossil in the British Museum, was presented to me by Baron Cuvier. It is four and a half feet long, and two and a half wide; it consists of the jaws, with teeth, palatal bones, and the tympanic bone, or os quadratum, a bone possessed by reptiles, as well as birds, and in which the auditory cells are contained. There are likewise some fine portions of jaws, with teeth, in the British Museum, presented by Camper. The original animal was probably a terrestrial reptile, holding an intermediate place between the Monitors and Iguanas. ”