Of these the celebrated fossil Salamander (which a German enthusiast
mistook for a fossil human skeleton), deposited in the first case,
will probably be most attractive to the general visitor. The first
three wall cases are devoted to the batrachian or Frog fossils; some
of the chelonian or Tortoise fossils; and the fossil crocodiles.
Fossil lizards are the most numerous of all fossil remains. Of these,
including the fossil crocodiles, the visitor will notice specimens in
the wall cases of this room, indicating the enormous size to which
these extinct reptiles must have grown. One, the Iguanodon (case 3)
was an animal that measured seventy feet in length. It existed in this
country; various bones of it are in this case. The remains of the
fossil Alligator, known as the mosasaurus, are also here, together
with the wealden lizard of Kent, which was about twenty-five feet in
length, and part of Cuvier's wonderful fossil Flying Lizard, or
sterodactylus, which is described as a reptile having mammalian
characteristics, a bat's wings, enormous eyes, and a bird's neck. In
the westerly cases of the room the visitor should notice the fossil
sea lizards divided into two families--the Plesiosaurus, and the
Ichthyosaurus. The plesiosaurus was an extraordinary reptile, of
gigantic size, the length of whose neck exceeded that of its body and
tail. It had ribs like a chameleon, and the body of a whale: it
chiefly inhabited the water; but as the visitor will find the chief
types of these extraordinary extinct reptiles in the next room, he may
at once, with the comfortable assurance that the Weald of Kent yields
nothing in the present day like the wealden lizard, turn to the table
cases of the room, in which he-will find further varieties of