Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs

by Dennis R. Dean

• ISBN13: 9780521088176
• ISBN10: 0521088178
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-10-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is a scholarly yet accessible biography 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

Castle Place

Oryctology

Fossils of the South Downs

Iguanodon

The geology of Sussex

Hylaeosaurus

Old Steine

Wonders of geology

Crescent Lodge

Medals of creation

Chester Square

Petrifactions and Their Teachings

Epilogue: Norwood Park

Notes

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.