I admit it. I am fascinated by dinosaurs too! Even though grandson’s dinosaurs are tidily in their bin – which means he hasn’t been playing with them for a few days, and he is glued to his Minecraft, I am still reading about dinosaurs.
I enjoyed finding the fossils of Elizabeth Philpot in the Oxford Natural History Museum, (with her original inked labels) and later an exhibit about Mary Anning.. I had read Tracy Chevalier’s Remarkable Creatures, which that museum display featured. Sadly, the museum is closed this year for roof repairs; it has a glass roof and halls with marble pillars and reminds me of the great 19th century railway stations!
The book I have just read, Dinosaur Doctor, by Edmund Critchley, is the story of Gideon Mantell, part of the 19th century wave of exploration of the past revealed by fossils, found not only on crumbling cliffs, as were Mary Anning’s Lyme Regis discoveries, but also in quarries and railway and canal building projects, which were numerous during that century. Mantell’s research covered many finds, mostly in southern England and especially the Iguanodon.
Their discoveries fuelled a century long debate on the history of the earth which eventually showed it to be much older than the then popular estimate of 6000 years. These scientists (thought that term was not yet in use) tried to work out theories of one or successive deluges, and to understand the time lines of their fossil discoveries, so unlike any species with which we are familiar now, and also the reasons marine fossils were being found far inland in England.
Mantell’s name, like most of the great names of that time of discovery and analysis, occurs in the wiki article on Mary Anning. They are all interesting people, not surprisingly often at odds with each other and fighting for recognition in the new field of research which was opening up. Mantell, unlike many of the gentlemen, had to struggle to make his living as a doctor and surgeon while his heart was clearly in his research. He always felt slighted and unrewarded and was unhappy at the thought his name would not be known in future years. I did sympathise- until I realised that Mary Anning could not even become a member of the new Geological Society, which he thought honoured him less than it should. And, as a gentleman, he could not have even tried to live on the annuity of 25 pounds a year which she received after losing her life savings of 300 pounds, when older and ill. Her ability broke through the barrier of class, education, and sex in historic ways but she lived a poor person’s life.
Mantell, like the other great geologists and palaeontologists of the newly emerging science, was a man with drive, ambition and a fascination with fossils- from the age of thirteen when he got his first specimen. In thinking about the accessibility of fossils- I picked up my first ammonite in a quarry at about the same age as the young Mantell- I wondered what fields are the new discoveries of this generation. Fossils- so nineteenth century. Young men inventing computers in a garage – so 20th century. What will be the new fields of knowledge of this century? And what assumptions will be challenged? And will there be space for the drive and intelligence of poor and under-educated people or will only the well-funded have the resources and time to work in new fields?
readingmater 