being laid up. First, there were several species of a great frog-like reptile, or Batrachian. This type had come into existence during the Carboniferous epoch, although such primeval forms seem first to have been purely marine in their habits. During the Triassic epoch, however, they certainly existed as land reptiles. The largest of these great frogs was about the size of a small ox; their teeth are of a very peculiar labyrinthine structure, and this character is very persistent. Singularly enough, the feetimpressions of these reptiles were found by geologists long before any of their remains had been met with. Owing to their remarkable likeness to an impression left by the human hand, the hypothetical animal leaving them was named Cheirotherium, or the "Beast with the hand." Another reptile, which combined lower with higher reptilian characters in a very extraordinary manner, was the Rhynchosaurus, or "Beaked Saurian." It had the features of a turtle, as regarded its horny bill, combined with the characters of a true lizard. It seems to have been web-footed, for in many parts of Shropshire and Cheshire the sandstone flags are marked as thickly with its webbed feet-marks, as the margin of a clayey pond is with those of ducks! This reptile was not so large as the first I mentioned. The Labyrinthodon, as that is now called, seems to have haunted the shores of the Keuper seas and lakes, for its foot-marks are found at many levels. They are generally seen traversing ripple-marks, sun

cracks, &c., as though the creature had passed over between tides.

In America, the same geological formation is impressed for more than a thousand feet in thickness, with the crowded foot-prints of supposed extinct birds. Everywhere you have evidence of slow subsidence-a subsidence that was first compensated for by the amount of material deposited over the subFig. 53.

siding area. You may often trace for yourselves something of the habits of the above-mentioned singular and extinct British reptiles, so well have the soft sandstones done their duty in recording what they felt and saw! Here the Labyrinthodons slowly lifted their feet from the soft mud, from which there dropped portions before they were next

set down. Or you may trace where they sluggishly squatted down, or where their huge bellies trailed over the soft ooze!

But by far the most interesting of the inhabitants of the dry land were small warm-blooded animals, belonging to the lowest division of the class-the Marsupials, or "pouched animals." These are now inhabitants of Australia, and Tasmania, and North America their isolated distribution proving their vast antiquity. In the times intervening since they first made their appearance, species belonging to this group have lived in various parts of the world. That to which I am alluding is very remarkable, as being probably the first warm-blooded mammal which appeared on the earth! Its name is Microlestes, or the "little thief," so called on account of its insectivorous habits, as indicated by its teeth. This little creature for it was not much bigger than a rat-preyed on the insects which then abounded in the pine-forests, or amid the thickets of fern and club-moss. Its predaceous character, however, leads some geologists to infer that it was not the first of its class, but that probably an earlier and simpler type appeared before it.

In a bed of later date, formed at the close of the Triassic epoch, and now termed the Rhætic formation, the strata are crowded with fossil insects. From this time forth the geologist never loses sight of the mammalia, and many deposits of later date contain a considerable number of species. In its

fossil state, the Microlestes has been found both in Germany and England. However, time fails me to say what I have heard of the strange creatures which lived elsewhere, during the epoch when I was born. It is more than probable that the numerous gigantic birds, whose foot-prints are found in the Connecticut Valley, had reptilian affinities-just as, during the Oolitic period, the reptiles had ornithic, or bird-like affinities.

In South Africa there existed a peculiar group of reptiles termed Dicynodonts, from the peculiar walrus-like characters of their tusks or teeth. They occur there in such abundance that the strata can be identified by their remains. The dry land everywhere was covered by a flora resembling in many of its general characters that of the Carboniferous epoch. This is the last we see of the familiar coal forms, for others were already in existence, destined soon to replace them and render them extinct. Thus much, therefore, for the dim recollections of a piece of Rock-salt!

St. Cuthbert sits, and toils to frame

The sea-born beads which bear his name."

SCOTT's Marmin.

OW few of the beauties, whose delicate ears, heaving bosoms, and supple wrists I am made to adorn, are acquainted with the faintest outline of my history and experience! I will leave it to my hearers to say whether my story is not worth listening to.

The period when I was born, and in whose rocks I am most commonly found, is that known to geologists by the name of the Lias. In the lignite portion of its strata, among the "Alum Shales," I occur in my natural state as lumps and nodules. When purest, I am deemed most valuable, on account of my use in the manufacture of the well-known jet ornaments. I am purely of vegetable origin-as