Fifth book of lessons for the use of schools . reek for near. It has aconsiderable resemblance in the body to the ichthyo-saurus, but the head is much smaller, and is altogetherof a different structure; but its most remarkable cha-racter is the great length of its neck. In man, allquadrupeds, and other mammalia, there are exactlyseven joints or vertebrae in the neck; and so strict isthe adherence to this rule, that there is precisely thesame number in the short, stiff neck of the whale, andthe long, flexible neck of the giraffe. Reptiles havefrom three to eight joints—birds many more : the swa
Fifth book of lessons for the use of schools . reek for near. It has aconsiderable resemblance in the body to the ichthyo-saurus, but the head is much smaller, and is altogetherof a different structure; but its most remarkable cha-racter is the great length of its neck. In man, allquadrupeds, and other mammalia, there are exactlyseven joints or vertebrae in the neck; and so strict isthe adherence to this rule, that there is precisely thesame number in the short, stiff neck of the whale, andthe long, flexible neck of the giraffe. Reptiles havefrom three to eight joints—birds many more : the swan,which has the most, is enabled to make the gracefulcurves of its neck by being provided with twenty-threeof those separate vertebrae; but the plesiosaurus had noless than forty-one. Mr. Conybeare, to whom we are indebted for thefirst description and name of the plesiosaurus, has giventhe following representation of this extraordinary long-necked reptile, in a restored state, in the same way ashe has given us a figure of the Some fragments of the bones of a saurian of giganticsize were discovered by Dr. Buckland, a few years ago,in the quarry ot Stonesfield, near Woodstock, inOxfordshire. According to the opinion of Cuvier, whoexamined them, they must have belonged to an indivi-dual of the lizard tribe, measuring forty feet ID length, MINERAL KINGDOM. 81 and having a bulk equal to that of an elephant sevenfeet high. This fossil animal was distinguished by with the name megalosaurus, on account of itsgreat size, megale being Greek for great. A most curious discovery was made a few years agoby Dr. Buckland at Lyme Regis. Pie had often remarked a number of long roundedstony bodies, like oblong pebbles or kidney potatoes,scattered on the shore, and frequently lying beside thebones of the saurians when these were discovered in therock. He was induced to make a closer examinationof them, and they turned out to be the dung of thesaurian reptiles in a fos
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