THEATRE ROYAL.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2480, 18 March 1882, Page 4

THEATRE ROYAL.

MB DKNI'ON’B LECTURES,

Mr Denton delivered his fourth lecture last night under the heading of “ The age of heasta and advent of man” to a very good house. The orchestra, which by the way has been augmented, played some very nice soleotions prior to the lecture commencing. Mr Denton, who aa usual was warmly greeted, said - Shakspearo had divided the life of men into sevon ages, and the ago oi this planet might also bo divided into the same periods—viz,, the ago of radiates, thei age of shells, the age of fishes, the carboniferous age, the age of reptiles (which was for consideration that evening), the . ge of mammals or beasts and the advent )f man, and lastly iho age of men in the norning of which they now lived. The salife.ous period was the age of reptiles, not that the reptiles made their first appearance in this ago, but the reptiles which came before the ago they were considering were but small, as the avant couriers of the life which was to come after, The impressions left behind of the tracks of the animals of this period showed that some hundred different species existed. This history, he might say, was existent in Connecticut, where the red sandstone for ninety miles and s thickness of one thousand feet gave them back the impression of the tracks of these reptiles. Not more plain wore the tracks of the birds on the eea shore to-day than the tracks in theoe red sandstones of Connecticut. Dr. Deane wes the first to find these tracks, and communicated with Dr. Hitchcock on the matter. Dr. Deane saw the marks on a paving stone, and took a,plaster oast of one of them, which had the effect of inducing Dr. Hitchcock to devote a largo part of his life to the development of these tracks. A large hall had been built in connection with the Ethnological College at Amherst, and there were here a very large number of oasts of tracks of various animals such as birds, tortoises, lizards, &0., amounting to'll9 different species. Some of these birds must have been much larger than even the moa, and one of the frogs had a foot twenty-two inches long. This must have been, so Dr. Hitchcock -said, as large as an elephant. Some of the forms were very singular, different from any living on the globe to-doy. He had called on Dr. Hitohoook, who was, though near his end, still studying a slab in which he took groat interest. Dr. Hitchcock pointed out a track which seemed at first to bo a track of a bird, but the slab told them that it was not a bird but an animal, because on the slab there was the impress of the animal having sat down to rest. This proved that the animal possessed the characteristics of the reptile, the frog, and the bird. Dr. Hitohoook was or opinion that there were birds uniting in themselves the characteristics of birds and reptiles, and since he died they had found that this was true, and that there wore reptiles with birdlike wings in this ancient period. Before the close of the triassic period they found the first mammal—the marsupial insect eating mammal, aa large only as a rat, was found in Germany. When they left the new red ■andstono in England they passed into the oolite and liaiaio beds. These were classed under the generic description of the jurassio beds. It was in the jurassio period that the reptiles were the masters of the world, flying through the air, creeping on the earth, ami in every position the monarohs of the world. Everyone no doubt had heard of the iothyosaurus, or fish lizard, and this was one of the reptiles of this period. In many places, and no doubt in Christchurch, there was an impression that the world was made all at once, and that the God who could make the flowers, &a., could moke these impressions of plants, &0., in the rooks in an instant of time without the necessity for them to have lived. Such persons us these seemed to think that geology was a thing which some people had built up after a number of years ; that it was a fabrication which only wanted a stout heart to blow it away. Well, ho would take suoh a man to the coast of England, near Whitby, where the skeletons of these giant sauriana were found, and ho would point out to him the prey of the saurian yet in its intestines. Was this put there when the world was made ? Was this prey put there in an instant of time ? He said any man who believed this had a far greater swallow than the ichthyosaurus itself—ha was a fossil who ought to be labelled and laid away for the year 3000. These facts which were so patent to them at that day showed them that the truths they served to illustrate were those which endured for ever, [Cheers.] Then they came to the plesiosaurus, and this was, has bad been described by a geologist of note, very like in some parts of its body the human body, foreshadowing as it might be the appearance of man on the planet. Thun came the pterodactyl, which, withont doubt, was a bird-like reptile, equally at homo in the water or in the air. Many species had been found having a sweep of wing twenty-seven feet wide from wing to wing. Some of the smaller ones must have fed ca insects, as dragon flies were found in the same rocks as the pterodactyls. They mast not imagine that all the reptiles were confined to the ocean, because they had found a largo number of land reptiles in the jurassio period in England, which during that period was far larger than at preoent. In Hent and Sussex the very bones of these reptiles were laid down on the roads to form the metalling thereof. Dr. Mantel! who had shed quite a light on this subject, fonnd several bones, amongst others a leg bone eight feet six inches long. Ho subsequently found that these bones belonged to a reptile, because the cells of the hopes of reptiles were different to mammals. Then he found the teeth of the reptile, which had been a vegetable eater, some of which wero worn down to the gums, whilst the smaller ones were quite sharp. This reptile was called the iguanodoo, and a model of it was in the grounds of the Sydenham Crystal Palace. The lecturer then proceeded to draw a fancy sketch of the appearance of the tropical forest, and the combats of the great lizards which inhabited it. In the ocean were the fairest shells and most beautiful corals existing at that time, particularly the ammonite, which was found near Whitby. Their peonliar snake-like form had given rise to the legend that these shells were originally snakes, and that St. Hilda had prayed them into stones. The geologist, however, demonstrated that those were shells once inhabited by animals who fed on the smaller animals of the sea. Here also was fonnd the nautilus, which survived whilst the ammonite had died out. The nautilus, though-not quite in the same form, still lived to this day, but the ammonite was dead. This had been very beautifully expressed in the verses of Bicbardson. They saw that even in geology thero was poetry, though it was generally treated in a dry manner. Leoturers on science sometimes gave them notonly the bones bnt scraped them dry before giving them to their audience. Pte said this, that science oonld be made attractive not alone to men and women but to children also, and the children who were attending their public schools should have the opportunity of learning these great facts and getting from the grand-volume of facts opened by nature before them an idea of the wonderful things which existed on the earth. He said this, that if a boy took a delight in science, ninety-nine times out of -a hundred he would turn out a good man. The knowledge to bo gained by these studies was far greater and far nobler than mnch that was tanght in their schools now. [Cheers.] Now, with regard to their subject. Above the formation he had been speaking of were the cretaceous rooks, which were mainly of chalk, and in these were found shells and fish in quite a number. In one cubic inch of chalk there wero thousands of shells, corals and fish, and little did their ladies think that if they had miorosoopio eyt-s, their cheeks which had been powdered with prepared chalk would look like the beach of the sea when the tide was out. [Laughter.] It was perhaps fortunate for the ladies that they had not miorosoopio eyes. Then they found in the flint, which underlaid the chalk, fossils of fish, corals and shells, and he had himself found the echinus or sea urchin complete. except as to the spines, in the heart of the flint in Kent. Now how did these forms get there. The flinty shells made the flint, and the lime shells the ohalk, so that they got the two deposits, viz., the ohalk and the flint. In the older ages the ocean passed clear through from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arotio Ocean, and a largo portion of New Jersey, Eastern Colorado, and other parts of the United States wero then under water. Whether sea serpents now existed was a moot point, but that they lived in the cretaceous age they knew quite well. Their fossil remains were found in various parts of America, and thus it was clear they once existed. Next evening he would discourse to them upon the ago of the mammals, when the sceptre of the world dropped from the hands of the

reptiles, and man, foreshadowed by the low types of life, similarly to the for-shadowing of the mammals, came forth. The leoturo, which was most interesting throughout, oloeed with the usual exhibition of some really splendid photographs, by the oxyhydrogen light.