93 EXTINCT MONSTERS. 



And now the puzzle was in a fair way to being solved ; for, to his 

 great delight, the doctor found that the minute teeth of that 

 reptile bore a closer resemblance in their general form to those 

 from Tilgate Forest than any others he had ever seen. 



In spite of this fortunate discovery, however, others remained 

 obstinate and unconvinced ; and it was not until he had collected 

 a series of specimens, exhibiting various stages of the teeth, that 

 the correctness of his opinion was admitted, either as to their true 

 interpretation, or the age of the strata in which they were 

 imbedded. And now there came good news from Paris. Cuvier, 

 with the fresh material submitted to him, had boldly renounced 

 his previous opinion, and gave the weight of his great authority to 

 the view maintained by the discoverer of these teeth. In a letter 

 to the doctor he said that such teeth were quite unknown to him, 

 and that they belonged to some reptile. He suggested that they 

 implied the existence of a new animal, a herbivorous reptile. Time 

 would either confirm or disprove the idea, and in the mean time 

 he advised Dr. Mantell to seek diligently for further evidence, 

 and, if part of a jaw could be found with teeth adhering, he 

 believed he could solve the problem. In his immortal work, 

 Ossemens Fossiles, Cuvier generously admits his former mistake, 

 and said he was entirely convinced of his error. 



Baron Cuvier alone amongst the doctor's friends or corre- 

 spondents was able to give any hint as to the character and 

 probable relations of the animal to which the recently discovered 

 teeth belonged. Being hampered by arduous professional duties 

 in a provincial town, remote from museums and libraries, Dr. 

 Mantell transmitted to the Royal Society figures and drawings of 

 the specimens, and, at the suggestion of the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, 

 adopted the name Iguanodon (Iguana-tooth) for the extinct 

 reptile, a name which pointed to the resemblance of its teeth to 

 those of the modern iguana, a land-lizard inhabiting many parts 

 of America and the West Indies, and rarely met with north or 

 south of the tropics. These lizards are from three to five feet in 



