Dragons & Snakestones

Dragons &
Snakestones

there rolls the deep where grew the tree;
o earth, what changes thou hast seen!
there, where the long street roars, hath been
the silence of the central sea
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
1849

I

Dragons & Snakestones
Photographs by Jamie Dormer-Durling
Introduction by Sir Crispin Tickell
Specimens Collected by Mary Anning
All texts from Anning’s correspondence are
reproduced verbatim
Made with support and kind permisssions from:
Lyme Regis Museum
Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
The Natural History Museum & Archives
Oxford University Museum of Natural History
The Geological Society of London

Foreword
from ‘Mary Anning of Lyme Regis’
by
Sir Crispin Tickell
II
Almost 200 million years ago the place which is now Lyme Regis
was a somewhat muddy sea not far from land.
Life was already prolific.
At the bottom of the food chain were plankton and such filter
feeders as oysters, crinoids and barnacles; a rich variety of
cephalopods or marine molluscs, including belemnites and many
species of ammonite; and at the top many species of fish and
such carnivores and scavengers as big marine or airborne reptiles:
ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, pliosaurs and pterodactyls. When they
died, the remains of these creatures fell to the murky bottom where
for lack of oxygen many were preserved, and over millions of years
subjected to enormous pressures and in many cases petrification.
Today they are found among the geological formations, notably the
Blue Lias, which run like fillings in a sandwich exposed in the cliffs
along the west Dorset Coast.
Of course fossils, and in particular these fossils, had been known
for generations. For a world in which time was compressed by
the supposed chronology of the Old Testament, and creation
of different species had happened once and for all for human
benefit, they were an embarrassing mystery best explained by the
Flood. It was for example hard to account for marine fossils found
on mountain tops. A Jesuit scholar of the seventeenth century
interpreted them as manifestations of a plastic force inherent in
rocks, and a few even believed that they were left around by God
as a test of faith. In Dorset they were lumped together as dragons,
crocodiles, ladies’ fingers or curios. For the most part they were
simply admired as curiosities but were scarcely intelligible within
most people’s frames of reference.
Into this world came Mary Anning.

III

‘I embrace the first opportunity of informing you that I have discovered another
plesiosaurus superior to one purchased by the Duke of Buckingham The head is
really beautiful and the lower jaw has sliped from under the upper jaw by which
we can see the inside of the mouth. The creature is between eleven and twelve
feete in length and four broade Sir Mr Konig seemed offendid at my not offering
him the first. Therefore I will thank you to mention it when you show him the
Ornithocephalas. Four Museums have at different periods bespoke a plesiosaurs
namely Bristol ‘Institution’, British Museum, Paris Mr Featherston for America
but I hope it will be purchased in England as it is really Magnificent. The disputed
points in the other are here finely preserved the vertebrae are in one continued
chain until the twelve last of the neck which are dislocated sternum bones of the
pelvis very fine; I have not yet washed it but from what I can see there will be
traces of a skin or shell between the ribs, I found it Thursday 29 Jan and have been
ever since setting and picking it -
Sir is there hope of you coming to Lyme again soone?
Respectful
Your obliged humble servant Mary Anning
p.s
Sir I shall feel greatly obliged by your sending me a line to say what you think I had
best do in regard to disposing of it. I must write to the Bristol Institution to say I
got such a thing.’
Letter to William Buckland
1829

IV

‘I am greatly obliged to Mr. Murchison for his kind
promise to lend me a copie of his memoir Mr D. has
also promised me his and I hope by some means to
get a peep at Dr. Fittons.
I do so enjoy opposition amongst the big wigs’
Letter to Charlotte Murchison
1829

V

‘next I have a picture of an ichts 4 feet 3 inches lying
on its back the sternum as perfect as if just taken from
a dissecting room and although the dorsal vertebrae
are discloated it is an advantage as showing the
intestinal skin Sir I just sent you a rough scratch of it
price £20’
Letter to Adam Sedgwick
1843

VI

‘I so intent on getting it out that I had like to have
been drowned and the man I had employed to assist
me, after we got home I asked the man why he had
[not] cautioned me about the tide flowing so rapidly
he said I was ashamed to say I was frightened when
you didn’t regard it, I whish you could have seen us
we looked like a couple of drowned rats, so woebegone
it makes me cold think of it.’
Letter to Charlotte Murchison
1829

VII

‘I sent of the ichts on Tuesday 2nd of Sept on board
the unity Pearce Mastr which I hope er’r this arrived
safe and I trust you will not be disappointed when
you Sir see it, whilst packing it I had the pleasure to
discover the greater portion of the second posterior
paddle, which previously was the defect I mentioned
in the skeleton...’
Letter to Adam Sedgwick,
1835

VIII

‘… I have never been out of the smoke of Lyme – as
my journey to London depended on a letter and I
have not yet received it I no longer hope to receive it
by the time specified in yours I can truly say that hope
deffered maketh the heart sick.’
Letter to Charlotte Murchison,
1829

‘Dear Madam you did not send me Mr. Murchison’s
last anniversary speech, I long to see it for Mr.
Hutton told me it was the best he had ever heard and
that Mr. Murchison looked like a God when he made
it, Which I most cordially believe for Mr. Murchison
is certainly the handsomest piece of flesh and blood I
ever saw.’
Letter to Charlotte Murchison,
1829

X

XI

‘…from what little I have seen of the fossil World and
Natural History, I think the connection or analogy
between the creatures of the former and present
World excepting as to size, much greater than is
generally supposed...’
Letter to Miss Solly,
1844

XII
XIII

‘it is a skeleton with a head like a pair of scissors Vertebrae like an encrinite thin as
a thread of which there are two 100 & 52 and the tail wanting the greater portions
of six claws or felers and winged like fins sternum simple composed but of two
bones also the pelvis the vertebrae skin and snout covered with tubercles like those
of the ray tribe which it strongly resembles in some parts and wholly differs in
others the teeth are like the tubercles on the body except that they are larger and
crooked it is quite unique analogous to nothing yet approaching to fishes insects
birds and animals about a foot and a half in length of which the underneath
scratch is a faint resemblance, and being the only one in Europe price 50£’
Letter to Adam Sedgwick
1831

XIV
XV

XVI

‘I would have answered your kind letter by the return
of post, if I had been able. Perhaps you will laugh
when I say that the death of my old faithful dog quite
upset me, the cliff fell upon him and killed him in a
moment before my eyes, and close to my feet, it was
but a moment between me and the same fate’
Letter to Charlotte Murchison,
1833

XVII

XVIII

Who first surveyed the Russian states?
And made the great Azoic dates?
And worked the Scandinavian states?
Sir Roderick
Who calculated nature’s shocks?
And proved the low Silurian rock
Detritus of more ancient flocks?
Sir Roderick
Who knows of what all rocks consist?
And sees his way where all is mist
About the metamorphic schist?
Sir Roderick
Who draws distinctions clear and nice
Between the old and new gneiss?
And talks no nonsense about ice.
Sir Roderick
Let others then, their stand maintain,
Work all for glory, nought for gain,
And each finds faults, but none complain.
Sir Roderick
Let Sedgwick say how things began,
Defend the old creation plan,
And smash the new one, if he can.
Sir Roderick
Let Buckland set the land to rights,
Find meat and peas, and starch in blights,
And future food in coprolites.
Sir Roderick
Let Agassiz appreciate tails,
And like the virgin old the scales,
And Owen draw the teeth of whales.
Sir Roderick
Take Thou thy orders hard to spell,
And titles more then man can spell.
I wish all such were earned so well.
Sir Roderick
‘Encomium Murchisonaum’
From Mary Anning’s Scrapbooks
1840s

XIX
XX

‘And what is a woman? Was she not made of the same
flesh and blood as lordly Man? Yes, and was destined
doubtless, to become his friend, his helpmate on his
pilgrimage but surely not his slave, for is not reason
hers?’
Scrapbooks
1840

XXI

XXII

I have sent off the platydon head for waggon railroad
to London, there are three pieces of the Vertebra with
a part of the Corocoid bones belonging to the same
animal price of the packing case 7 shillings’
Letter to Adam Sedgwick
1843

XXIII

‘I beg your pardon for distrusting your friendship.
The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made
me suspicious of every one’
Letter to a young girl,
1840s

XXIV

XXV

XXVI

Photographer’s Note
Mary Anning, born 1799, was a fossil hunter and palaeontologist
from Lyme Regis, UK. Her discoveries and insights contributed to
the identification and classification of a wide range of prehistoric
life and changed scientific understanding of the history of the Earth.
As a woman born to a poor family, she was denied fellowship of the
scientific communities of the day and her work was often credited
to the men that dominated the field.
Writing in ‘The Geological Curator’ Journal in 1985 David Price
discusses his findings whilst ‘computerising’ the Sedgwick Museum
Catalogue the previous year
‘I was busy generating a computer listing of all known collectors,
donors and vendors of Museum specimens and selectively crosschecking
it with manual catalogue entries and old specimen labels.
One name which did not appear on this computer-generated list was
that of the celebrated Lyme Regis collector Mary Anning. At the time
this was something of a disappointment.
My attention had only just been drawn to the existence of several
letters written from Anning to Adam Sedgwick in the 1830s and early
1840s which both offered some specimens for sale and indicated that
others had, indeed already been purchased. These specimens I had
hoped to identify. The absence of Anning’s name was not, moreover, a
feature merely of the computer list. Subsequent checking showed that
there was no reference at all to Mary Anning either in the manual
catalogue or on any Sedgwick specimen labels.’
In recent years her story has become well-known, particularly
around the broader historic social injustices that her case highlights,
yet information and evidence about her is fragmentary; a handful of
letters and notebooks which reveal the extent of her knowledge and
glimpses into her state of mind.
Today she is acknowledged in the museums and collections that
hold her work, though often credited as a collector, rather than
the field palaeontologist and scientific thinker that she was. In a
letter written in 1844 – fifteen years before the publication of ‘On
the Origin of Species’ – she anticipates the fundamental basis of
Darwin’s theory of evolution
‘…from what little I have seen of the fossil World and Natural History,
I think the connection or analogy between the creatures of the former
and present World excepting as to size, much greater than generally is
supposed...’
Whilst figuring out how to photograph her original specimens I
looked closely for areas that I felt would have interested her, details
that would have been noticed by her as she sat for days and hours,
her trained eyes scanning their moonlike surfaces as she cleaned
and prepared them for sale. Then I would look again for traces of
her hand, scratchings from her pick; on her correspondence and
notebooks I looked to the marks from her pen - evidence of her
thinking, her presence; intimate, physical marks left behind by a
remarkable woman.
Jamie Dormer-Durling,
July 2019

Photographic Plates
I - Sea, Lyme Regis, 2018
II - Detail of Painting of Mary Anning, credited to ‘Mr Grey’,
Library at Natural History Museum, London, Photographed 2015
III - Detail of Letter from Mary Anning to Charles Konig,
concerning the sale of a Pterodactyle , 1829, Natural History
Museum Archives, London, Photographed 2018
IV - Clifftop at Black Ven, Lyme Regis, 2018
V - Entrance to the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences,
Cambridge, 2017
VI - Detail of SM J.35189, Ichthyosaurus communis, collected
1843, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge,
Photographed 2017
VII - Sea, Lyme Regis, 2018
VIII - Detail of J.35187, Ichthyosaurus communis
collected 1835, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge,
Photographed 2017
IX - Detail of Letter from Mary Anning to William Buckland,
concerning the sale of an Ichthyosaur , 1829, Natural History
Museum Archives, London, Photographed 2018
X- Detail of R.2003, Temnodontosaurus platydon
collected 1832, Natural History Museum, London
Photographed 2018
XI - Detail of SM J.35189, Icthyosaurus platydon, collection
date unknown, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge,
Photographed 2017
XII - Technical drawing of ‘Squaloraia’ from ‘Transactions of the
Geological Society of London: Riley, H. 1837, Oxford University
Museum of Natural History, Photographed 2017
XIII - Detail of Palaeocoma egertoni, collected 1840, Natural
History Museum Archives, London, Photographed 2017
XIV & XV - Detail of WB/C/D/185, pencil sketch of ‘Squaloraia’,
drawn by Mary Anning 1829, Oxford University Museum of
Natural History, Photographed 2017
XVI - Detail of J.3097, Squaloraja polspondyla, collected 1829,
Oxford University Museum of Natuaral History, Photographed
2017
XVII - Detail of rock face at Black Ven, Lyme Regis, 2017
XVIII - Detail of R1034, Dimorphodon macronyx, Collected
1828, Natural History Museum, London, Photographed 2019
XIX - Detail of WB/C/D/131, pencil sketch of ‘Chelydra’, drawn
by Mary Anning, date unknown, Oxford University Museum of
Natural History, Photographed 2017
XX - Detail of letter to J. Phillips of Kings College London
concerning the sale of some belemnites, 1835, Oxford University
Museum of Natural History Archives, Photographed 2018
XXI - William Smith’s Map in the entrance hall of The Geological
Society of London, 2018
XXII - Detail of Ichthyosaurus communis, collected 1835, Oxford
University Museum of Natural History, Photographed 2017
XXIII - Detail of J. 68446, Temnodontosaurus risor, collected
1843, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge,
Photographed 2017
XXIV - Detail of J.35187, Ichthyosaurus communis
collected 1835, Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge,
Photographed 2017
XXV - Detail of R.2003, Temnodontosaurus platydon
collected 1832, Natural History Museum, London
Photographed 2018
XXVI - Construction of the Mary Anning Wing of Lyme Regis
Museum, Lyme Regis, 2017

with thanks to
Alejandro Acin
Laurence Anholt
Ross Bliss
Daniel Bosworth
Sam Brooks
Eliza Hewlett
Zoe Hughes
Caroline Lam
Stephen Monger
Colin Pantall
Tom Roche
Katch Skinner
Sir Crispin Tickell
David Tucker
& Christianne, Anoushka and Indira. For tolerating me.