ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE EARL OF MUNSTER, F. R.S. F. G. S. 1 &c. &c. &c. AS A TESTIMONY OF THE HIGHEST RESPECT AND REGARD, AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HIS LORDSHIP'S STRENUOUS ENDEAVOURS TO PREVENT THE DISPERSION OF THE AUTHOR'S COLLECTION, These Lectures are Inscribed, BY HIS LORDSHIP'S MOST FAITHFUL AND OBLIGED SERVANT, GIDEON ALGERNON MANTELL. CRESCENT LODGE, CLAPHAM COMMON, PREFACE. IN preparing the first edition of this Work for the press, I was greatly assisted by the kindness and zeal of my friend, G. F. Richardson, Esq.* whose ability as a reporter enabled him to furnish me with copious notes of the Lectures. which I delivered at Brighton, in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a County Museum, and Scientific Institution in that town. Those notes were the ground-work of the unpretending volumes which, under the title of "THE WONDERS OF GEOLOGY," have met with so favourable a reception. The former publication, consisting of two thousand copies, having been disposed of in the course of a few months, a new edition is required, and I have therefore carefully revised * Of the British Museum. the Work, and made such corrections and additions as the leisure moments which my professional engagements have allowed me, would permit. The additional illustrations are both numerous and important, and I trust will be found to enhance the interest of these volumes, without having materially increased their size or price. My geological collection, consisting of upwards of twenty thousand specimens, from which the subjects for the illustration of the Lectures were selected, was, at the period of the former editions, exhibited at Brighton by the Sussex Literary Institution, as the "Mantellian Museum." At that time I had every reason to believe that my collection would be permanently established in Sussex, and serve as the foundation for a County Museum. In that expectation I have, however, been utterly disappointed; for although I would willingly have made any pecuniary sacrifice, to accomplish what appeared to me so desirable an object, yet after the death of my noble and lamented friend, the late Earl of Egremont, the munificent patron of the Institution, the proposed measure was abandoned, and even opposed by many of its |