SECTION VII.
MOSOSAURUS, OR GREAT ANIMAL OF MAESTRICHT.
The Mosasaurus has been long known by the name of the great animal of Maestricht, occurring near that city, in the calcareous freestone which forms the most recent deposite of the cretaceous formation, and contains Ammonites, Belemnites, Hamites, and many other shells belonging to the chalk, mixed with numerous remains of marine animals that are peculiar to it self. A nearly perfect head of this animal was discovered in 1780, and is now in the Museum at Paris. This celebrated head during many years baffled all the skill of Naturalists; some considered it to be that of a Whale, others of a Crocodile; but its true place in the animal kingdom was first suggested by Adrian Camper, and at length confirmed by Cuvier. By their investigations it is proved to have been a gigantic marine reptile, most nearly allied to the Monitor.[1] The geological epoch at which the Mosasaurus first appeared, seems to have been the last of the long series, during which the oolitic and cretaceous groups were in process of formation. In these periods the inhabitants of our planet seem to have been principally marine, and some of the largest creatures were Saurians of gigantic stature, many of them, living in the sea, and controlling the excessive increase of the then existing tribes of fishes.
From the lias upwards, to the commencement of the
- ↑ The Monitors form a genus of Lizards, frequenting marshes and the banks of rivers in hot climates; they have received this name from the prevailing, but absurd, notion that they give warning by a whistling noise, of the approach of Crocodiles and Caymans. One species, the Lacerta nilotica, which devours the eggs of Crocodiles, has been sculptured on the monuments of ancient Egypt.
