Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/189



SECTION X.

IGUANODON.

As the reptiles hitherto considered appear from their teeth to have been carnivorous, so we find extinct species of the same great family, that assumed the character and office of herbivore. For our knowledge of this genus, we are indebted to the scientific researches of Mr. Mantell. This indefatigable historian of the Wealden fresh-water formation, has not only found the remains of the Plesiosaurus, Megalosaurus, Hylæosaurus, and several species of Crocodiles and Tortoises in these deposites, of a period intermediate between the oolitic and cretaceous series, but has also discovered in Tilgate Forest the remains of the Iguanodon, a reptile much more gigantic than the Megalosaurus, and which, from the character of its teeth, appears to have been herbivorous. The teeth of the Iguanodon are so precisely