Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    them reaching a great size; and Professor Owen has found in Warwickshire some remains of an animal of the batrachian order,* to which, from the peculiar form of the teeth, he has given the name of labyrinthodon. Thus, three of Cuvier’s four orders of reptilia (sauria, chelonia, and batra- chia) are represented in this formation, the serpent order (ophidia) being alone wanting. The variegated marl beds which constitute the uppermost group of the formation, present two additional genera of huge saurians,—the phyto- saurus and mastodonsaurus. It is in the upper beds of the red sandstone that beds of salt first occur. These are sometimes of such thickness, that the mine from which the material has been excavated looks like a lofty church. We see in the present world no circum- stances calculated to produce the formation of a bed of rock salt; yet it is not difficult to under- stand how such strata were formed in an age marked by ultra-tropical heat and frequent volcanic disturbances. An estuary, cut off by an upthrow of trap, or a change of level, and left to dry up under the heat of the sun, would quickly become * The order to which frogs and toads belong. se ee 2 a ee ee
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