Of these the most interesting specimens are the remains of the Marine
Lizards known as ichthyosauri from the English lias formation. To the
right on entering, against the eastern wall of the room, the visitor
should first notice the fossil remains of various carnivorous animals,
including the skulls and other osseous wrecks of hyenas, bears, &c.,
and also, carefully screened in an additional glass case, hereabouts,
the lower jaw of a marsupial animal on a slab of oolitic limestone--an
early deposit, in which the highest class fossils generally found are
the tortoises.
In this room, however, the visitor will notice the progress of early
creation--first, the zoophytes; then the fish lizards; then the fossil
ruminants; then the fossil carnivora. Examples of these fossil remains
are all included in the room which the visitor has now reached. First,
he should examine the fossil remains of the ichthyosauri, or fish
lizards, ranged in the first three wall cases, particularly that
eighteen feet in length, deposited in the third case, one on the upper
shelf of the fourth case, and another on the upper shelf of the fifth
case. The case marked F contains fossils of a higher order than the
reptiles, as the bones and antlers of deer, found in later strata of
the earth's crust; and on the top of the case are the horn and skull
of a species of Texan bos. Having noticed these curious remains,
principally of extinct species of animal life, the visitor should at
once turn to the table cases which contain the last of the
illustrations of the mineral kingdom.