ROOM III. THE MAIDSTONE IGUANODOX. 303 



has acquired an enduring celebrity in British Palaeontology ; 

 for from this quarry was obtained, a few years since, the most 

 considerable portion of the skeleton of the Iguanodon hitherto 

 discovered. 



Mr. Bensted, whose active and intelligent mind was alive 

 to the various objects of interest with which he was sur- 

 rounded, and who had assiduously collected the fossils that 

 were from time to time brought to light in his quarry, had 

 instructed his workmen to preserve every shell or bone im- 

 bedded in the rock. 



In May 1834, upon blasting a large block of limestone, 

 the workmen observed in some of the masses that were 

 blown off, pieces of a brown substance, which they supposed 

 to be petrified wood ; they preserved some of the largest 

 portions for the inspection of Mr. Bensted, who at once per- 

 ceived they were fragments of the bones of some gigantic 

 animal. He therefore directed that every piece should be 

 collected, and succeeded in regaining some fragments that 

 had been taken to the river-side ; and after much trouble he 

 gathered together the dissevered masses of rock, which, when 

 united, formed the specimen in Case 23. 



Mr. Bensted assiduously cleared away the investing lime- 

 stone, as far as the very brittle condition of the bones would 

 admit; and when , I visited him, in company with \V. D. 

 Saull, Esq., the characters of the principal bones were suffi- 

 ciently exposed to view, to admit of my recognising them as 

 analogous to those which I had ascribed to the Iguanodon. 



Some gentlemen of Brighton, anxious that a specimen 

 which shed so much light on the osteology of the Iguanodon, 

 should be placed in the hands of the individual who first dis- 

 covered the teeth and bones of that extraordinary type of 

 reptilian organization, purchased the fossil of Mr. Bensted, 

 and presented it to the author. 1 It was brought to me by 



1 The following is a list of the donors; the proposal originated with 

 the two gentlemen whose names are placed first. 



M. RICARDO, ESQ. Sir Richard Hunter. 



HORACE SMITH, ESQ. E. Lindo, Esq. 



Rev. J. S. M. Anderson. J. Masquerier, Esq. 

 Thomas Attree, Esq. Dr. Price. 



George Basevi, Esq. Rev. Thomas Rooper. 



Thomas Bodley, Esq. W. Tennant, Esq. 



Dr. Hall. Rev. H. M. Wagner. 



R, Heaviside, Esq. J. Sarel, Esq. 



