Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs (review)

2001 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 684-686
Author(s):  
Simon J. Knell
Keyword(s):  
Gideon Mantell

The status of Gideon Mantell's “first” Iguanodon tooth in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

1997 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN C. YALDWYN ◽  
GARRY J. TEE ◽  
ALAN P. MASON
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gideon Mantell

A worn Iguanodon tooth from Cuckfield, Sussex, illustrated by Mantell in 1827, 1839, 1848 and 1851, was labelled by Mantell as the first tooth sent to Baron Cuvier in 1823 and acknowledged as such by Sir Charles Lyell. The labelled tooth was taken to New Zealand by Gideon's son Walter in 1859. It was deposited in a forerunner of the Museum of New Zealand, Wellington in 1865 and is still in the Museum, mounted on a card bearing annotations by both Gideon Mantell and Lyell. The history of the Gideon and Walter Mantell collection in the Museum of New Zealand is outlined, and the Iguanodon tooth and its labels are described and illustrated. This is the very tooth which Baron Cuvier first identified as a rhinoceros incisor on the evening of 28 June 1823.

Reading Stratigraphical Woodscapes in Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 210-223
Author(s):  
Anna Burton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Local History ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Geological Work ◽  
Gideon Mantell ◽  
Modes Of Thought ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Visual Cultures

In The Woodlanders (1887), Hardy uses the texture of Hintock woodlands as more than description: it is a terrain of personal association and local history, a text to be negotiated in order to comprehend the narrative trajectory. However, upon closer analysis of these arboreal environs, it is evident that these woodscapes are simultaneously self-contained and multi-layered in space and time. This essay proposes that through this complex topographical construction, Hardy invites the reader to read this text within a physical and notional stratigraphical framework. This framework shares similarities with William Gilpin's picturesque viewpoint and the geological work of Gideon Mantell: two modes of vision that changed the observation of landscape in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This comparative discussion at once reviews the perception of the arboreal prospect in nineteenth-century literary and visual cultures, and also questions the impact of these modes of thought on the woodscapes of The Woodlanders.

Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs

Palaios ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 601
Author(s):  
Spencer G. Lucas ◽  
Dennis R. Dean
Keyword(s):  
Gideon Mantell

Gideon Mantell and the Maidstone Iguanodon

1951 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-276 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Original Description ◽  
The South ◽  
Gideon Mantell

The name Iguanodon was first given publication in a letter from Gideon Mantell, F.R.S., to his friend Davies Gilbert, M.P., V.P.R.S., 1 printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1825. 2 The specimens upon which this name was founded were more or less worn teeth which Mrs Mantell had collected in the spring of 1822. Some of these teeth are referred to in The Fossils o f the South Downs , 3 published in May 1822, as being of ‘unknown animals.’ This suggests that the teeth were found early in the year as stated by Mantell and not in the summer as has been published by Sidney Spokes. 4 Most of the teeth found by Mrs Mantell and figured in 1825 have been reddentified in the collections of the British Museum (Natural History) and are now on exhibition in the Geological Department of the Museum. Examination shows that those which are specifically identifiable are all referable to the species subsequently named Iguanodon mantelli . A t their original description no specific name was, however, applied, and it is open to serious question whether the name , derived from the similarity of the teeth and those of the living Iguana , was ever valid. This would seem an instance in which the mercies of the International Commission’s rule 46 might well be held to apply, to keep in use an ancient and much-used name.

scholarly journals Notice on the iguanodon, a newly discovered fossil reptile, from the sandstone of Tilgate forest, in Sussex. By Gideon Mantell, F. L. S. and M. G. S. Fellow of the College of Surgeons, &c. In a letter to Davies Gilbert, Esq. M. P. V. P. R. S. &c. &c. &c. Communicated by D. Gilbert, Esq

1833 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 234-235
Keyword(s):  
A Chain ◽  
Gideon Mantell

The bones of the fossil herbivorous reptile described in this paper were discovered in the sandstone of Tilgate Forest in Sussex, which is a portion of the iron-sand formation, and forms a chain of hills stretching in a W. N. W. direction from Hastings to Horsham. In this sandstone the bones and teeth in question are accompanied with those of saurian animals, turtles, birds, fishes, shells, and vegetables, among which may be satisfactorily traced the remains of a gigantic species of Crocodile, of the Megalosaurus, and of the Plesiosaurus. The teeth of the three last-mentioned animals are readily recog­nised and identified; but in the summer of 1822, others were disco­vered in the same strata, which, though evidently referrible to some herbivorous reptile, possessed peculiar and striking characters. Anxious to ascertain the opinions of naturalists respecting these, the author submitted them to the inspection of the most eminent, and among the rest to Baron Cuvier, who, while acknowledging that such teeth were previously unknown to him, agreed in the conclusion of their belonging to some herbivorous reptile of gigantic size, and re­commended every research to be made for more connected portions of the skeleton.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document