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But the accidental discovery of Belemnites in due connection with black elongated masses which were: certainly fossilised ink-bags, inasmuch as the ink could be ground up and used for painting as well as if it were recent sepia, settled the question; and it became perfectly safe to prophesy that the creature which fabricated the Belemnite was a two-gilled cephalopod with suckers on its arms, and with all the other essential features of our living squids, cuttle-fishes, and Spirulae.

Thus the chalk contains remains of those strange flying and swimming reptiles, the pterodactyl, the ichthyosaurus, and the plesiosaurus, which are found in no later deposits, but abounded in preceding ages. The chambered shells called ammonites and belemnites, which are so characteristic of the period preceding the cretaceous, in like manner die with it.

In what sense can Loligo or Spirula be said to be more specialized, or less embryonic, than Belemnites; or the modern species of Lamellibranch and Gasteropod genera, than the Silurian species of the same genera?

In the Department of the Hautes Alpes, in France, M. Eliede Beaumont traced a black argillaceous limestone, charged with belemnites, to within a few yards of a mass of granite. Here the limestone begins to put on a granular texture, but is extremely fine-grained. When nearer the junction it becomes grey, and has a saccharoid structure.

In what sense can 'Loligo' or 'Spirula' be said to be more specialized, or less embryonic, than 'Belemnites'; or the modern species of Lamellibranch and Gasteropod genera, than the Silurian species of the same genera?

Thus the chalk contains remains of those strange flying and swimming reptiles, the pterodactyl, the ichthyosaurus, and the plesiosaurus, which are found in no later deposits, but abounded in preceding ages. The chambered shells called ammonites and belemnites, which are so characteristic of the period preceding the cretaceous, in like manner die with it.

But while our chalk cliffs conjure up a vision of England lying deep at least twenty or thirty fathoms deep below a warm ocean, in which gigantic Ammonites and Belemnites and sharks ply their deadly trade, they also remind us of the last phase of the remarkable life of the earth's Middle Ages. In the latter part of the Cretaceous the land rises.

Thus the chalk contains remains of those flying and swimming reptiles, the pterodactyl, the ichthyosaurus, and the plesiosaurus, which are found in no later deposits, but abounded in preceding ages. The chambered shells called ammonites and belemnites, which are so characteristic of the period preceding the cretaceous, in like manner die with it.

Indeed, I have had two thunderbolts shown me at once, one of which was a large belemnite, and the other a modern Indian tomahawk. Curiously enough, English sailors still call the nearest surviving relatives of the belemnites, the squids or calamaries of the Atlantic, by the appropriate name of sea-arrows.

For instance, among the mammalia the pachydermata, among the reptilia the salamander and newt, among the articulata the cephalopoda, are at present remarkably reduced; compare with the legions of ammonites and belemnites of the secondary period the small number of nautilus and cuttle-fish of the seas at the present day.