The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, June 1885, No. 9Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Philosophy
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, June 1885, No. 9
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
4. “Iguanodon,” i-guāˈnō-don. This gigantic fossil reptile was discovered
in the year 1882, in the Wealden beds of Kent and Sussex, also in the
Isle of Wight, by Dr. Mantell. The enormous bones were very abundant,
and from a close study of them, it has been estimated that the extreme
length of the reptile must have been twenty-eight or thirty feet, of
which the head was three, and the tail thirteen feet. It stood higher
above the ground than any reptile now in existence. The teeth, which
bear a remarkable resemblance to the teeth of the American lizard, the
iguana, from which it was named, show that the animal was herbivorous.
It probably fed on the trees growing along the borders of swamps and
streams, and was able to lift its body for this purpose on its hind legs.
5. “Megˌa-lo-sauˈrus.” The word comes from the Greek, as do nearly all
the words in this list, and means great lizard. The bones found in the
rocks of the Oolite formation, the one next below the Wealden, show the
animal to have been terrestrial and carnivorous. It fed upon smaller
reptiles and the young of the larger orders. Its huge body was supported
on four large, strong legs, the hind ones being estimated to have had a
length of nearly six feet. The length of the animal must have been thirty
or forty feet. In the first estimates made of all these saurians, their
size was overestimated, the body of the iguanodon having been given as
seventy feet in length, and the megalosaurus as sixty or seventy feet.
6. “Pleˌsi-o-sauˈrus.” The word means like a lizard. It is a remarkable
fossil sea-reptile, which shows a long, snake-like neck, in which there
are thirty-three vertebræ, ten more than in the longest neck of any
bird. The body and head are comparatively short. Its whole length, when
living, was probably twenty-five or thirty feet. Buckland describes it
as follows: “To the head of a lizard it united the teeth of a crocodile,
a neck of enormous length, resembling the body of a serpent, a trunk
and tail having the proportions of an ordinary quadruped; the ribs of
a chameleon, and the paddles of a whale.” There were fifty teeth in
each jaw. Conybeare says of it: “That it was marine is evident from its
paddles; that it may have occasionally visited the shore, the resemblance
of its extremities to those of the turtle may lead us to conjecture;
its motion must have been, however, very awkward on land; its neck must
have impeded its progress through the water. May it not therefore be
concluded—since, in addition to these circumstances, its respiration must
have required frequent access to the air—that it swam upon or near the
surface, arching back its neck like the 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 the surface from a considerable
depth, may have found a sure retreat from the assaults of dangerous
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