were collected together, it was found that the body of the animal was 9 feet 6 inches in height, and 16 feet 4 inches long from the nose to the end of the tail. The tusks were 9 feet 6 inches in length, and weighed 360 lbs.: the head with the tusks weighed 414 lbs. The skin of the animal was of such great weight that it required ten persons to drag it to the shore. More than 36 lbs. of the loose hair of the monster was collected from the ground into which it had been trodden by the bears, who had collected round the carcass to devour the flesh. The entire skeleton of this strange animal is now in the Museum at St. Petersburg, and a part of the skin and some of the hair are deposited in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.

The existence of the mammoth has been traced to a period so recent, that it no doubt approached nearly to, if it has not existed contemporaneously with, man. In what manner, and by what strange convulsion of nature, these animals were destroyed in the freezing latitudes of the Arctic circle, has never been explained, and will probably ever remain a mystery. A humorous writer gives the following theory, which throws as much light on the subject in a few words as is afforded by much more elaborate essays. "One day, ever so long ago, the earth must have been thrown off its axis by contact with some star, or such-like; its poles were reversed, and instantly a change of climate ensued. Now, that big mammoth must have been, just at that time, taking a warm bath in his own country quietly, and all of a sudden he found himself like a fly in amber, and-very cold." Some illustrations of the mammoth, together with the mastodon and other animals of the tertiary formation, are in course of construction by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, and will in due course make their appearance in public. The Irish Elk.-The_animals completed include a group of very fine figures of the Irish elk-an extinct creature, the remains of which have been found in many parts of the bogs and marshes of Ireland. These beautiful animals have been produced in all their pristine majesty and strength. The male measures nearly seven feet to the top of his back, and the distance between the tops of his noble antlers is not less than twelve feet. The largest buffalo of the plains would stand but a poor chance in an encounter with this broad-chested powerful creature; the couchant figures by the side are females, and they exhibit great beauty and symmetry of form. Complete skeletons of these creatures exist in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society, and the manner in which these figures have been reproduced is creditable, not less to the anatomical knowledge, than to the artistic ablilities, of Mr. Hawkins.

The Megatherium.-One of the largest animals which have been found in the tertiary deposits is the gigantic megatherium, an animal of the sloth species. His configuration is massive and enormous, his limbs like unwieldly columns, with every characteristic of slow movement and great strength. The megatherium

is a living pyramid, fifteen or sixteen feet high; and he must indeed have been a most extraordinary animal. His fore-feet are about a yard in length, and terminated by powerful claws; the hind legs are shorter, and much more strongly built. The tail is short, massive, and broad, and somewhat resembles an hind leg; and, elevated on these and the tail, as on a tripod, the animal could wrestle with the most gigantic trees, tear them down, and thus gain access to their tender branches and leaves. The breadth of the pelvis or haunches is between five and six feet, the girth round the body about twenty feet, and some idea of his massive frame work may be gained from the fact that the ossa ilia of the largest elephant measure three feet and a half, while those of the megatherium measure five. The circumference of the thigh bone of the largest elephant is twelve inches-that of the megatherium is twenty-six. An entire skeleton was found near Buenos Ayres, in South America, from which these measurements were taken.

The Anoplotherii. -The group of four graceful lama-like animals will be examined with interest. They are restorations of animals which once swam in the vast lake in which Paris now stands, and which browsed amid the herbage of its banks, at a period prior to the time when the stone of which Paris was built was formed. Some few bones of these animals were discovered in the gypsum quarries of Montmartre, near Paris, and it was upon their careful examination that Cuvier first evinced his vast anatomical knowledge, by pronouncing them to be the remains of animals of the description here shown, and which subsequent research has found to be strictly correct.

THE SECONDARY EPOCH.

Leaving the latest formations, the visitor will now pass on along the walk by the water's edge, and inspect the restorations of animals which existed during the vast and grand secondary epoch. The illustrations which are in a state of the greatest forwardness are those which represent this series of formations. These were ages when a luxuriant vegetation prevailed, and huge creeping things, and carnivorous monsters, roamed through tangled brake, or pursued their prey along the shallow banks of vast inland seas. Here creatures more terrible and appalling than poet's fancy ever dreamed of, lived and died; and even now, entombed amid their rocky catacombs, though the sleep of countless ages has rolled over them, they still appear to human eyes the strangest and the most terrible of created things. Jaws of monstrous size, all bristling with sharp and formidable teeth, arc imbedded in rock, just as they gaped to devour their victim; and the transfixed eye-socket, huge and stony, still glares horridly from its fossil skull, as it once did when overtaken by some resistless convulsion of nature. But let us inspect the strata and their inhabitants more closely.

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The Chalk.-The first or upper of the series is the great stratum of chalk-that extensive chalk formation, so prominent in the cliffs of Dover, and in many other parts of our island. This formation abounds with what are popularly known as "flints," but which, it is not so generally known, are, for the most part, nothing but sponges," which, long ages since, were deposited in soft shallows, in which they became imbedded and fossilized. These once soft, moist, elastic, and absorbent sponges, are now the hardened flint from which a shower of sparks of fire may be obtained, by striking them with a piece of steel; they form one of the principal materials from which the glass of the Crystal Palace was obtained, and the visitor, in journeying along the crowded roads, or borne by steam over the metallic highways of the country, or in traversing the spacious walks in the Palace grounds, has passed over many millions of the fossilized sponges of an antediluvian age. The chalk in which these sponges are imbedded, converted by burning into lime, is used for building purposes; and under the plastic hands of the moulder, it has passed into those forms of art and beauty which, in the Fine Arts Courts, have delighted and instructed the visitor. Among the animals entombed in the chalk deposits are

The Mosasaurus.-That colossal lizard-like head, with wide gaping jaws, belonged to an animal, a portion of which was found in the valley of the Meuse, in Belgium, hence its name—the lizard of the Mose or Meuse. The head is five feet in length, and the entire length of the beast could not have been less than from twenty-five to thirty feet. He is provided with a row of formidable teeth, and was no doubt an exceedingly destructive animal. The remains of the head were found at the foot of a chalk cliff, at Maestricht; the teeth are casts from the originals, and the whole head has been most carefully and successfully reproduced. It belonged to an aquatic member of the great Saurian family. Remains of animals of the same character have been found in the upper chalk near Lewes, in Sussex, in the greensand of Virginia, and at Woodbury, in New Jersey, United States.

There will be here a very large pterodactylus; a similar creature is also shown in the oolite, and will be there described.

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The Wealden.-Next below the chalk lies the extensive Wealden formation, which abounds in Kent, Sussex, and a portion of Surrey, and which, in consequence of the large number of gigantic fossils which it contains, has been called the metropolis of the " dinosaurians,' or monster lizards. It was covered with wild and rank vegetation, and abounded with vast fresh water lagoons and deposits. Several restored specimens of these fossil plants are placed in this stratum. They are of a coniferous character, and closely resemble in their structure, ferns and plants of a similar character. The specimens on the island are called cycadeoidea and zamites. The cycade is the one with a cone-like arrangement

of the leaves. The plant of the same species as the cycade which exists in the present day is one which in the East Indies yields a coarse sort of sago; and from the existing zamia of New Zealand is manufactured the finest description of arrow-root. At the head of this formation are placed two illustrations of

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The Iguanodon.-There are two specimens of this animal; is represented as standing upon its four legs, and the other is lying like a huge lizard upon the ground. It was in the mould of the standing animal that the banquet previously referred to (p. 11) was given on the last day of the year 1853. The iguanodon is a colossal land lizard, thirty or forty feet long. His peculiar formation shows an intimate and beautiful connection and gradation to the pachydermata of the present day, of which the elephant is the type. Dr. Mantell, to whom the honour of his first discovery is assigned, thinks that some of these animals were seventy to eighty feet long. The broad and powerful tail, tapering gradually to a point, occupies more than half the length of the entire beast. The thigh bone measures twenty-two inches in circumference, and the thigh of the largest species is five feet long, the clawed foot extending nearly a yard. The girth round the body is about twenty-five feet. The animal is a true Briton. Numerous fossil remains are found in the Wealden formation in Kent and Sussex. Mr. Holmes, of Horsham, in Sussex, has discovered nearly the whole of a fossil skeleton in his neighbourhood, and the whole of the bones so found were most liberally placed at the disposal of Mr. Hawkins, in order from them to construct the present fine specimens. The animal was a vegetarian in his habits, and he certainly does credit to the system under which he lived and flourished. Very recently Mr. Hawkins, in company with Mr. Bowerbank, examined, by means of a powerful microscope, a portion of the fossil skin of an iguanodon which, with great difficulty, they separated from the rock in which it was imbedded and preserved. After carefully removing the extraneous particles adhering to the piece of skin, they were not less astonished than gratified to find it glistening with scales, and presenting the appearance of bright and dazzling shagreen, thus fully establishing the truth of the previously generally received opinion that the animal was, when alive, covered with a scaly covering, similar to that in which he is now presented to the eyes of the visitor.

The Hylaosaurus.-That colossal, horny, and spiky animal, along whose back is a row of long spikes or scutes," rejoices in the name of the Hylaosaurus. The rich soil of the Wealden formed the sepulchre of this animal, and, like other great personages of antiquity, his weapons of offence and defence were buried with him, for the long spikes which now adorn his back were found in situ with the vertebrata out of which they originally grew, and the present ones are exact casts from the originals. To what particular use these scutes" were applied by the animal has not yet been decided; they certainly do not appear well adapted for

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purposes of attack, and it is probable that they were given to the creature for defensive purposes, and that he had the power of raising or depressing them according as he was affected by emotions of fear or anger. A terrible scene it would have been to have witnessed on the sedgy banks of some old Thames or Medway the megalosaurus hobbling down to the margin of these muddy streams to slake his thirst, and to see this gigantic porcupine slowly raising himself out of the water, cast his saurian eyes over the livid expanse in search of some object which he might drag down with him to his river den, and hear the ferocious howl and roar with which the two monsters would grapple and struggle with each other, till the dark waters were reddened with their blood, and one or both of the combatants sank beneath their wounds. The hylaosaurus is about twenty-five feet in length, the scales on the back from eighteen inches to two feet in height. A large proportion of the bones of one of these strange creatures is to be seen in the British Museum. A small animal of the lizard kind, very closely resembling in general structure this huge creature, but not more than a few inches in length, was very recently brought to this country by Mr. Gould from Australia. The venomous little reptile was covered with horny spikes and shell; it had the same array of "scutes" along the back, and was most appropriately named by its discoverer "Moloch horridus."

The Megalosaurus.-The large beast next in order is one for the knowledge of which the world is mainly indebted to Dr. Buckland, and Professor Owen calls him the most "cantankerous" of all animals, and one of the most savage and destructive which in geological epochs roamed over the chaotic earth. Some bones were first found by Dr. Buckland in that portion of the oolitic groups known as the Stonesfield Slate; some bones of the monster have also been found in the Wealden formation, showing that, unlike most of his gigantic colleagues, he had subsisted during at least two distinct epochs, the oolite and the Wealden. An entire skeleton exists in the museum at Oxford, and this anomalous creature has been most carefully constructed from the data afforded by these fossil bones. The length of the megalosaurus, upon a very moderate and reasonable calculation, could not have been less than thirty-five feet; a thigh bone of one of these beasts now in the British Museum would convey the idea of an animal of nearly double the length of the present specimen. His strong jaws mark him at once as a beast of extraordinary ferocity, and carnivorous to the highest degree. In the expression of his face there is no trait of nobleness or generosity like that which marks the lion of the present day, and no Van Amburgh or Carter of a contemporary age would ever have dared to try his hand in the taming or subduing of this greedy and ferocious monster. The teeth of this animal are most terrific; they combine the qualities of a saw and a knife, and as they curve backward they appear in the mouth of this creature like a double row of sharp and jagged-edged