92 
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 7iew animal^ a herbivorous 7‘epfile. 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, 
Oss677ie7is 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 
