BINOSA URS. 
91 
the teeth were of no particular interest, and that, without doubt, 
they either belonged to some large fish, or were the teeth of a 
mammal, and derived from some superficial deposit of the 
“glacial drift,” then called Diluvium. 
There was one man, however, who foresaw the importance of 
Mantell’s discovery, and that was Dr. Wollaston. This dis- 
tinguished philosopher, though not a naturalist, supported the 
doctor’s idea that the teeth belonged to an unknown herbivorous 
reptile, and encouraged him to continue his researches. 
As if to add to the difficulty of solving the enigma, certain 
bones of the fore limb, discovered soon after in the same quarry 
and forwarded to Paris, were declared to belong to a species of 
hippopotamus ! Another very curious bone — of which we shall 
speak presently — was declared to be the lesser horn of a 
rhinoceros ! The famous Dr. Buckland even went so far as to 
warn Dr. Mantell not to publish it forth that these bones and 
teeth had been found in the Tilgate Forest strata. To him it 
seemed incredible that such remains could have been obtained 
from beds older than the superficial drift deposits of the district. 
We must bear in mind that in those days palaeontology, or the 
knowledge of the world’s former inhabitants, was a new science 
still in its infancy, and the idea of mammals having existed so far 
back as the Cretaceous period must have appeared incredible. 
However, the workmen in the quarry were stimulated by 
suitable rewards, and at length the doctor’s efforts resulted 
in the discovery of teeth which displayed the curious serrated 
edges, and the entire form of the unused crown. Having 
forwarded specimens and drawings of these to Paris, Dr. Mantell 
went to London, and ransacked all the drawers in the Hunterian 
Museum that contained jaws and teeth of reptiles, but without 
finding any that threw light on this subject. Fortunately, Mr. 
Samuel Stuchbury, then a young man, was present, and proposed 
to show him the skeleton of an Iguana, which he had himself 
prepared from a specimen that had long been immersed in spirits. 
