評(píng)論
打印
Aware that his finding would entirely upend what was understood about the past, and urged by his friend the Reverend William Buckland—he of the gowns and experimental appetite—to proceed with caution, Mantell devoted three painstaking years to seeking evidence to support his conclusions. He sent the tooth to Cuvier in Paris for an opinion, but the great Frenchman dismissed it as being from a hippopotamus. (Cuvier later apologized handsomely for this uncharacteristic error.)
曼特爾意識(shí)到，自己的發(fā)現(xiàn)會(huì)徹底推翻人們對(duì)過(guò)去的認(rèn)識(shí)。威廉·巴克蘭——那位身穿長(zhǎng)袍、愛(ài)好試驗(yàn)的學(xué)者--也勸他小心行事。因此，曼特爾花了3年時(shí)間，努力尋找支持自己的結(jié)論的證據(jù)。他把牙齒送交巴黎的居維葉，征求他的看法，但那位偉大的法國(guó)人輕描淡寫(xiě)地認(rèn)為，那只不過(guò)是河馬的牙齒。（居維葉姿態(tài)很高，后來(lái)為這個(gè)不常犯的錯(cuò)誤道了歉。）
One day while doing research at the Hunterian Museum in London, Mantell fell into conversation with a fellow researcher who told him the tooth looked very like those of animals he had been studying, South American iguanas. A hasty comparison confirmed the resemblance. And so Mantell's creature became Iguanodon, after a basking tropical lizard to which it was not in any manner related.
有一天，曼特爾在倫敦的亨特博物館作研究，跟一位同事攀談起來(lái)。那位同事對(duì)他說(shuō)，它看上去很像是他一直在研究的那種動(dòng)物——南美鬣蜥的牙齒。他們馬上進(jìn)行了比較，確認(rèn)了它們的相似之處。于是，曼特爾手里的動(dòng)物以熱帶一種愛(ài)曬太陽(yáng)的蜥蜴命名，被叫做禽龍。其實(shí)，二者之間沒(méi)有任何關(guān)系。
