Labels:text | font | paper | publication | document OCR: Gideon Mantell (1790-1852), a doctor living in Lewes in the south of England, collected fossils as a hobby. In 1822, he published The Fossils of the South Downs, in which he described some unusual fossilized teeth that he and his wife Mary had found in the quarries of Tilgate Forest. Mantell showed these teeth to leading fossil experts in England in an attempt to identify them. William Buckland (1784-1856) thought they belonged to a large fish, while others suggested they were from a mammal. Dissatisfied with their answers, Mantell sent them to French anatomist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), who concluded that Mantell had found a plant-eating reptile. THUMB-CLAW ON NOSE In 1824, still curious about his finds, Mantell visited the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. He was shown the skeleton of a modern iguana, and at once saw similarities between its bones and his fossils. In a report to the Royal Society in London in 1825, Mantell named his find Iguanodon. An incomplete skeleton, found nine years later, gave him the opportunity to attempt a reconstruction of Iguanodon. In his drawing, he mistakenly placed the thumb-claw on its nose, as it looked similar in shape to the nose horn of a type of modern iguana. MINING DINOSAURS In 1878, miners working in a coal seam in Bernissart, Belgium, came across some fossilized bones. The Royal Natural History Museum in Brussels was contacted at once, and scientists soon recognized the huge importance of the find. Fossilized teeth from the mine were identified as belonging to Iguanodon, and were donated to the state. Meanwhile, the coal miners became dinosaur diggers. Work in the mine continued until 1881, during which time about 40 skeletons were recovered, some complete. This was the first time that whole dinosaur skeletons had been discovered. DINOSAURS ON DISPLAY The Royal Natural History Museum in Brussels hired French-born Louis Dollo (1857-1931) to prepare and reconstruct the skeletons for display. Dollo spent the next 25 years preparing the bones in the 15th-century Chapelle Saint-Georges. As many as 11 mounted skeletons now stand in the museum. Another 20 lie in the positions in which they were found. With complete skeletons at his disposal, Dollo was able to conclude that Mantell's nose horn was in fact a thumb-claw.
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