Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs

by Dennis R. Dean

• ISBN13: 9780521420488
• ISBN10: 0521420482
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-01-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This scholarly yet accessible biography - the first in a generation - of a pioneering dinosaur hunter and scholar. Gideon Mantell discovered the Iguanodon (a famous tale and related in this book) and several other dinosaur species, spent over twenty five years restoring Iguanodon fossils, and helped establish the idea of an Age of Reptiles that ended with their extinction at the conclusion of the Mesozoic Era. He had significant interaction with such well-known figures as James Parkinson, Georges Cuvier, Charles Lyell, Roderick Murchison, Charles Darwin, and Richard Owen. Dennis Dean, a well-known scholar of geology and the Victorian era, here places Mantell's career in its cultural context, employing original research in archives throughout the world, including the previously unexamined Mantell family papers in New Zealand.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	viii
Acknowledgments	ix
Editorial Notes	xiii
List of Abbreviations	xv
Castle Place	i
Oryctology	19	(17)
Fossils of the South Downs	36	(16)
Iguanodon	52	(34)
The Geology of Sussex	86	(20)
Hylaeosaurus	106	(20)
Old Steine	126	(24)
Wonders of Geology	150	(21)
Crescent Lodge	171	(21)
Medals of Creation	192	(24)
Chester Square	216	(20)
Petrifactions and Their Teachings	236	(23)
Epilogue: Norwood Park	259	(9)
Stratigraphic Table	268	(13)
Index	281