The Legacy of the Mastodon

The uncovering in the mid-1700s of fossilized mastodon bones and teeth at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, signaled the beginning of a great American adventure. The West was opening up and unexplored lands beckoned. Unimagined paleontological treasures awaited discovery: strange horned mammals, birds with teeth, flying reptiles, gigantic fish, diminutive ancestors of horses and camels, and more than a hundred different kinds of dinosaurs. This exciting book tells the story of the grandest period of fossil discovery in American history, the years from 1750 to 1890. The volume begins with Thomas Jefferson, whose keen interest in the American mastodon led him to champion the study of fossil vertebrates. The book continues with vivid descriptions of the actual work of prospecting for fossils--a pick in one hand, a rifle in the other--and enthralling portraits of Joseph Leidy, Ferdinand Hayden, Edward Cope, and Othniel Marsh among other major figures in the development of the science of paleontology. Shedding new light on these scientists' feuds and rivalries, on the connections between fossil studies in Europe and America, and on paleontology's contributions to America's developing national identity, The Legacy of the Mastodon is itself a fabulous discovery for every reader to treasure.

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Title of ebook: The Legacy of the Mastodon
ISBN: 9780300151848
parent-ISBN: 9780300117042
Publisher: Yale University Press
Internet download file size: 1995 kb
Pages: 424
Published: 10-2008
Released online for download: 10-01-2008
Author of eBook: Thomson, Keith

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The Legacy of the Mastodon

The Golden Age of Fossils in America

List of Maps and Tables.....................................................................ix Preface.....................................................................................xi Acknowledgments.............................................................................xv PART ONE: The Jeffersonians ONE Fossil Hunters on the Frontier.........................................................3 TWO Big Bone Lick..........................................................................10 THREE Franklin, Jefferson, and the Incognitum..............................................24 FOUR Jefferson's "Great-Claw" and a World About to Change..................................34 FIVE The First American Dinosaurs: An Eighteenth-Century Mystery Story.....................41 SIX Fossils and Show Business: Mr. Peale's Mastodon........................................46 PART TWO: Fossils and Geology SEVEN Fossils and Extinction: Dangerous Ideas..............................................57 EIGHT Mary Anning's World................................... ... read full excerpt from The Legacy of the Mastodon ebook

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The Legacy of the Mastodon

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