Monday, January 12, 2009
THERE are two Charles Darwin anniversaries this year. February 15 will be his 200th birthday and, on November 24, we will celebrate the publication, 150 years ago, of his famous book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.
Darwin provided the crucial piece of a biological jigsaw puzzle, but he didn’t come up with the theory of evolution all on his own. Others made vital contributions to it. That creatures change under pressure from their environments was fist suggested by the Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. The survival of the fittest principle, crucial to natural selection, was first suggested by the clergyman-economist Robert Malthus. Evidence that creatures become extinct, a controversial idea then, came from fossils. Most of these were found by geologists but, by the early 19th century, specialist fossil hunters had arrived on the scene. They tended to be upper-class males with time on the hands, but the greatest fossil-finder of all was a woman and one of humble origins. The 210th anniversary of the birth of Mary Anning, "the princess of palaeontology", occurs on May 21.
Anning is unique among celebrities in that few people know her name but almost everyone has heard of her; the tongue-twister ‘she sells seashells on the seashore’ is thought to refer to her. Born at Lyme Regis in the south of England to a carpenter and his wife, a dramatic event occurred during her infancy — she was one of four people struck by lightning. Three others, including the nurse holding her, were killed, but Mary survived. An older sister had burned to death when her clothes caught fire at home and only two of the nine Anning children reached adulthood.
Mary’s father supplemented his income by selling fossil curiosities to tourists. The 200-million-year-old cliffs of the Jurassic coast, crumbling under the onslaught of the sea, exposed a wealth of fossils, as they still do today. From an early age, Mary accompanied her father on his searches but when she was 11 years old he died of tuberculosis and injuries sustained in a fall from a cliff. Facing destitution and dependent on charity, fossil hunting became the Anning family’s principal means of support.
Mary’s finding skills were extraordinary. She had an uncanny instinct as to where objects might be found and could see the faintest signs of a fossil where nobody else could. Once an item had been located, she took great care in extracting it. When only 12 years old, she and her brother discovered a five-metre-long ichthyosaur, the so-called ‘fish lizard’. They found the first fossils of plesiosaurs, extraordinary sea-monsters once described as "snakes threaded through the shells of turtles". She and her brother spent 10 years excavating and extracting one specimen.
But Anning was no mere retriever of items for more knowledgeable patrons. She received no formal education but taught herself to read and write. Perusing the scientific literature of the time, she was able to classify most of the items she found, producing drawings and scientific descriptions of them. She was especially skilled at reassembling scattered remains and seemed to know instinctively how ancient animals looked and functioned.
Crispin Tickell, in Robert Huxley’s The Great Naturalists, gives an insight into her character — although she corresponded with the leading palaeontologists of the day and mixed with the great and the good, she never put on airs and graces and retained her west country accent. Frequently triumphing in academic disputes, her manner was described as rather satirical, although kind and generous, she didn’t suffer fools gladly.
Apart from one visit to London, Anning spent her entire life around Lyme Regis and had difficulty making ends meet, although, in her 30s, she was given an annuity by the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Of all the creatures she discovered, only two are named after her and, being a woman, she was given only honorary membership of the Geological Society of London. She thought, according to a friend, that "the world has used her ill and does not care for it… men of learning have sucked her brains and made a great deal by publishing works, while she derived none of the advantages." Mary Anning died of breast cancer in 1847.
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