BOOK REVIEW: She pioneered the fossil business

OPINION:

THE FOSSIL HUNTER: DINOSAURS, EVOLUTION AND THE WOMAN WHOSE DISCOVERIES CHANGED THE WORLD

By Shelley Emling

Palgrave Macmillan, $27, 234 pages

Reviewed by Claire Hopley

Over the last few decades much has been unearthed about the history of women, yet many unsung heroines remain, especially in scientific fields where men have dominated. Shelley Emling’s “The Fossil Hunter” helps to redress this by describing the life of Mary Anning, the 19th-century fossil hunter, whose pioneering work established a base for the natural scientists who unlocked the secrets of geological and evolutionary change.

Ms. Emling tells a fascinating tale. Born in 1799, Anning was the daughter of Richard Anning, a carpenter who supplemented his income by gathering fossils from the crumbling cliffs of Lyme Regis, in West Dorset, England. Landslides are frequent on this shore - now known as the Jurassic Coast - scattering fossils and exposing skeletons bedded out of sight for millions of years.

Local residents appreciated the odd-shaped fossils they found. They believed ammonites, which they called snakestones because of their coiled shape, warded off illness. Belemnites were thought to be thunderbolts, and efficacious for diseases of horses’ eyes.

Fossils were also profitable curios to sell to Lyme Regis’ wealthy visitors. Anning was so successful in the fossil business that when Jane Austen asked him to mend a box lid, he demanded a princely five shillings, presumably because he no longer needed such journeyman work.

When he died, 11-year-old Mary, kept up the trade, supporting her family at it until she died in 1847. By this time, she was running Anning’s Fossil Depot from a house that she had bought, and her contributions to science had been rewarded with an annual pension from the government.

Scientists had long understood that fossils were animal remains, but they did not believe these animals were extinct, partly because they had no idea of the age of the rocks in which they were found. More importantly they believed that the Earth and its biological stock were created at one moment in time, and formed a complete chain of being. The extinction of a species implied that the chain was broken, or - yet more inconceivable - that ideas about the creation and age of the Earth were inaccurate.

During Anning relatively short life, these age-old theories were refuted as scientists and theologians discovered more about the natural world. Anning’s work was crucial to this increase of knowledge. She had developed an instinct for where the best fossils would be found, and not only retrieved them but also to prepared them for display and to drew them in scientific detail.

Of all the many fossil hunters - scientists and locals alike - who picked over the cliffs, she was the most talented. When she was still only 12 she found a monster skeleton later named Ichthyosaurus and sold it for 23 pounds - enough money to keep the family for several months.

Mary Anning went on to discover many more dinosaurs. Naturally, geologists and biologists were eager to explore the amazing cliffs of Lyme Regis and to meet the woman who mined their fossil hoard. Generous with her time and knowledge, Anning met all the major British and European scientists of her day, and was recognized by them not just for her fossil-finding skills but also ultimately for her store of paleontological knowledge.

Many scientists with whom she collaborated acknowledged her help, and one or two identified new species of dinosaurs with the description “anningii” in her honor. But many more species are named for the men who bought them and discussed them at the scientific societies from which Anning - as a woman - was banned.

Today a portrait of Anning and her dog hangs in London’s Natural History Museum, where several of her most impressive finds also rest. But her name is far from well-known, and Ms. Emling does a service in drawing attention to her groundbreaking work.

But while the tale Ms. Emling tells is never less than eye-opening, the way she tells it is less than ideal. To her credit, she marshals an immense amount of information about the world of 19th-century geology and paleontology, detailing the controversies about the meaning of the layers of rock and the increasing evidence that animals can indeed become extinct. By weaving these scientific and theological hypotheses into Mary Anning’s biography, she illumines not only her achievements but also those of the men who called upon her aid.

But Ms. Emling lets her narrative skills run away with her. She embellishes descriptions of Mary and others with imagined details of their thoughts or reactions. Presumably, she intends to add color, but in fact spreads alarm and despondency by raising nagging questions about her mix of fact and imaginary detail. It may be reasonable to reflect “It must have irked Mary greatly that her gentlemen scientist never had to worry about money, while she scrimped and saved every bit she earned.”

But constant speculations are discomforting when she invents wholly imaginary scenes such as “Curled up under heavy blankets, in a home still black and completely quiet, probably all she could think about was the seashore and how much she missed it. The prospect of spending yet another day with her maudlin mother would have been unbearable.”

There is no factual evidence for this, and such fanciful sugaring of the pill of fact contributes nothing to Anning’s history. Ms. Emling does not stop at speculative embroidery. Occasionally, she scoops in anecdotes, such as the two pages on Queen Victoria’s overnight visit to Lyme that lack any relevance since she never met Mary Anning or visited the cliffs. Ms. Emling also occasionally misrepresents English history, claiming, for example, William IV was responsible for the social reforms of the 1830s.

For all this, her book is nonetheless valuable because it trains a well-deserved spotlight on Anning, explicates some of the philosophical dilemmas of 19th-century science, and incidentally, also notes several other women who became expert fossil hunters and collectors.

Claire Hopley is a writer and critic in Amherst, Mass.