How to See the British Museum in Four Visits by W. Blanchard Jerrold
page 78 of 221 (35%)
page 78 of 221 (35%)
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fossil bones, which cover the southern wall, the fossil turtles from
Sussex and other parts, and the great fossil thigh bones of reptiles that have passed long since from the face of the earth, the visitor should once more advance into the fourth room of the gallery. In this room the wall cases are devoted to FOSSIL ANIMALS. 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 |
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