240 Obituary — W. H. Bensted. 



MR. WILLIAM HARDING BENSTED. 

 "We regret to have to record the death of W. H. Bensted, Esq., 

 which took place at his residence near Maidstone, on the 2nd of 

 April, at the age of 71. 



Mr. Bensted was well known to Geologists as the proprietor and 

 worker of the extensive and interesting Kentish Eag quarries, near 

 Maidstone, in which he discovered, in 1834, the greater portion of 

 the skeleton of an Iguanodon. This specimen, the only one as yet 

 discovered in which the bones of the same individual have been 

 found in juxtaposition, was first described and figured by Dr. 

 Mantell, in whose museum at Brighton it formed a principal object 

 of attraction, previous to its purchase for the National Collection. 

 It was subsequently described and figured by Prof. Owen, iu a Mono- 

 o-raph for the Palgeontographical Society for 1851, and more recently 

 by Prof. Huxley ; and it has furnished the best data to each of these 

 authors, for the reconstruction of the skeleton of this huge extinct 

 reptile. Among other remains found by Mr. Bensted in these 

 quarries, may be mentioned a new species of Plesiosauriis (P. latis- 

 pinus, Owen), and two fossil plants, Ahietites Benstedi and Draccena 

 Benstedi; these are preserved in the British Museum, and various 

 vertebrate and invertebrate remains have been deposited by him in 

 the Charles Museum at Maidstone, an Institution in which he took 

 great interest. 



He was the first to direct Dr. Mantell's attention to the amorphous 

 nodules and carbonaceous substance found in, and intermingled with 

 the shells of Trigonice and other mollusks, and to suggest that these 

 substances are the remains of the soft bodies of the molluscous shells 

 with which they are associated, and which has been named by Dr. 

 Mantell " Molluskite" ("Medals of Creation," p. 431). 



Mr. Bensted was also the discoverer, in the Chalk of Burham, of 

 the small marine turtle which bears his name {Chelone Benstedi). It 

 was first described by Dr. Mantell as a species of Emijs in the 

 Philosophical Transactions in 1841, and again by Prof. Owen, who 

 determined its true affinity, in his Monograph of British Fossil 

 Eeptiles in 1851. 



This specimen, which is also in the National Collection, is valuable 

 as beino- the first which conclusively determined the existence of 

 marine turtles during the period of the deposition of our English Chalk. 



He published in the fifth volume of the " Geologist " some 

 interesting and valuable papers on the '-'Geology of Maidstone," 

 which contain an excellent description of the various beds or 

 divisions of the Kentish Eag.'^ His knowledge of the geology of the 

 country surrounding that town, rendered his services as an intelli- 

 gent and able guide, and expounder of its Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 deposits, in much request by geological visitors and excursionists to 

 that neighbourhood, services which he was always ready with cordial 

 geniality to tender. W. D. 



1 Geologist, 1862, Vol. V., p. 294, p. 334, p. 378, p. 447. 



