Elements of geology, or, The Elements of geology, or, The ancient changes of the earth and its inhabitants as illustrated by geological monuments elementsofgeolog00lyel Year: 1868 406 MAMMALIA OF GREAT OOLITE. [Ch. XX Fig. 410. shells, with fragments of wood, are common, and impressions of ferns, cycadeae, and other plants. Several insects, also, and, among the rest, the wing-covers of beetles, are perfectly preserved (see fig. 410), some of them approaching nearly to the genns Bupres- tis* The remains, also, of many genera of reptiles, such as Pleiosaur, Crocodile, and Pterodactyl, have b
Elements of geology, or, The Elements of geology, or, The ancient changes of the earth and its inhabitants as illustrated by geological monuments elementsofgeolog00lyel Year: 1868 406 MAMMALIA OF GREAT OOLITE. [Ch. XX Fig. 410. shells, with fragments of wood, are common, and impressions of ferns, cycadeae, and other plants. Several insects, also, and, among the rest, the wing-covers of beetles, are perfectly preserved (see fig. 410), some of them approaching nearly to the genns Bupres- tis* The remains, also, of many genera of reptiles, such as Pleiosaur, Crocodile, and Pterodactyl, have been discover- ed in the same limestone. But the remarkable fossils for which the Stonesfield slate is most celebrated are those referred to the mam- miferous class. The student should be reminded that in all the rocks described in the preceding chapters as older than the Eocene, no bones of any land-quadruped, or of any cetacean, had been discovered until the Spalacothe- rium of the Purbeck beds came to light in 1854 (see above, p. 381). Yet we have seen that terrestrial plants were not rare in the lower cretaceous formation, and that in the Wealden there was evidence of freshwater sediment on a large scale, containing various plants, and even ancient vegetable soils. We had also in the same Wealden many land-reptiles and winged insects, which render the ab- sence of terrestrial quadrupeds the more striking. The want, however, of any bones of whales, seals, dolphins, and other aquatic mammalia, whether in the chalk, or in the upper or middle oolite, is certainly still more remarkable. Formerly, indeed, a bone from the Great Oolite of Enstone, near Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, was cited, on the author- ity of Cuvier, as referable to this class. Dr. Buckland, who stated this in his Bridgewater Treatise,f had the kindness to send me the supposed ulna of a whale, that Prof. Owen might examine into its claims to be considered as cetacean. It is the opinion of that eminent comparative
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