The Dragon in the Cliff

by Sheila Cole

  The answer she gave was unexpected. “These days, geologists would say that it means the creature no longer exists, that it is extinct.”

  Extinct? No longer existing? The Reverend Gleed would say that God would not remove entire tribes of his own creation from the earth. “Is it possible that they live somewhere else now or that they have changed over the years?” I asked.

  “Some creatures that we find in fossil form have been found alive in other areas of the world, areas with climates that are better suited to them,” Miss Philpot said, seeming not to notice my discomfort. “But often there are differences between the fossil and the living creature. And not all the creatures we find in fossil form have been found living. No one has ever found a living ammonite, for example.”

  I have thought a great deal about this matter, turning it over and over in my mind. I did not want to believe that God would remove entire tribes of animals from the face of the earth. Yet I have found not a few petrified animals and plants that were different from any creatures known to be living now. What happened to them? Did they simply vanish from the earth, become extinct, as Miss Philpot would say? And if they did, how did they vanish? And why? We are told that the ways of God are not easily understood by man. This must be the case with extinction. There must be some purpose, some meaning that we, poor mortals, cannot understand.

  The question of extinction leads to another question that has been troubling me. It is written in the Holy Bible that the earth, the seas, the heavens, and everything that dwells therein were created only once “in the beginning.” But many of the fossil creatures I find, like the clams and the oysters, though similar to those that live now in the sea, are much, much larger than present-day ones. Some differ in other aspects, as well. How did they come to be different, especially if they were all created at one time?

  Whenever I talk about this with Mama, she tells me to read the Bible. She warns me not to be led astray by mere cleverness. I have tried not to stray from God’s word, but I have found no answer to my questions in the scriptures. Nothing is written there about ammonites or giant crocodiles with no limbs or about creatures vanishing from the face of the earth. Nor is there anything there that would explain by what process modern-day animals became different from the fossilized ones I find.

  As she was packing up her pad and pencils, Miss Philpot invited me to her house on Silver Street that afternoon to look at a new book on geology that had just arrived in the post from Edinburgh. I eagerly accepted, never stopping to think about the disparity in our social positions. But when I came to the rambling house with its many gables, I hesitated. Which entrance should I knock at? I could call at the trade entrance, but I had come at the invitation of Miss Philpot. As I stood there trying to decide, I heard something like a tinkling, dancing brook, a rushing of sound, more varied than water, yet somehow cool and refreshing like water. The music—for I decided that it must be music, though I had never heard anything like it before—was at once gay and sad. I was entranced by it, yet it made me hesitate. I was afraid I would be uncomfortable inside such a house. Before I could escape, Miss Philpot spied me through the window.

  A girl, about my age, admitted me through the front door into an entrance hall with a floor of inlaid squares of wood. Miss Elizabeth Philpot came through a side door to greet me. Taking me by the hand, she led me into a large sitting room, the most luxurious I have been in. I was impressed by the gold-framed mirror which hung over the carved, painted mantel and by the blue-flowered carpet that covered the floor. Being the daughter of a cabinetmaker, my eye was caught by the inlaid mahogany library table set on a single pedestal and by the lightness and delicacy of the other tables and chairs.

  Miss Elizabeth introduced me to her sisters, first the elder, Miss Mary Philpot, who was seated at the far end of the room in front of an oblong box on legs that I later learned was a harpsichord, and then to her younger sister, Miss Margaret Philpot, who was seated on a gold satin damask settee in front of the window with her needlework in her lap. In making these introductions, Miss Elizabeth called me Miss Anning and made much of me, telling her sisters that I was the discoverer of the monster fossil about which all of Lyme was talking.

  When we had been introduced, Miss Elizabeth urged me to make myself comfortable, saying that she would fetch the book for me. I sat down beside Miss Margaret, who told me that they were just about to have tea and asked me to join them. I declined out of shyness, but she insisted, saying that I must have been chilled from my walk up the hill.

  While we waited for tea to be brought, Miss Mary played the harpsichord. Again there was that rushing of sound, like a brook, that carried me away. Tea was soon brought in by the girl who had admitted me. Her name, I was told, was Betty Beer. She was from Seatown and an orphan. Miss Mary, who left the harpsichord to come sit with us, served us, urging me to take a second helping. When the tea things were cleared away, Miss Elizabeth gave me The Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society.

  I had never seen a book about geology before. I could scarcely keep myself from opening it and devouring its contents right there. But before I had a chance, Miss Margaret started a conversation, asking with a pleasant smile if she might call me by my Christian name.

  “Please do,” I told her. I found it strange to be called Miss Anning or even Mary Anning by someone so much older.

  “Elizabeth told me that you have some doubts about the identity of the fossil you found. She said that you don’t think it is a crocodile?”

  “We call it a crocodile,” I replied, “because we do not know what else to call it. But somehow, though I have never seen a crocodile, I doubt that this is one.”

  “Will you be disappointed if it turns out not to be one?” she asked.

  Miss Elizabeth answered for me, “Why should she be, Margaret? Whatever it turns out to be will be of interest. After all, the fossil is enormous … quite spectacular. It is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. It is the first entire fossil of its kind that has been found in the world. Crocodile or not, it is causing a stir, and will certainly be of interest to geologists and those who study comparative anatomy.”

  “If it is not a crocodile, what is it?” Miss Mary asked.

  “No doubt it is some creature that is no longer in existence,” Miss Elizabeth replied coolly.

  But her answer did not seem self-evident to her sister, who said, “I don’t know how you can say such a thing, Elizabeth. Just because you have never seen anything like it before does not mean it doesn’t exist somewhere on this earth, in other latitudes, perhaps.”

  As soon as I returned home I dove into the book that Miss Philpot lent me. From the various memoirs that made up the book, most of which were written by a Mr. Jameson, I understood that Mr. Werner believed that the earth was once covered by a vast sea that periodically receded, leaving portions of the earth bare, and then flooded over it again. The rocks and minerals that make up the surface of the earth have condensed out of the minerals in that sea. It was water, Mr. Werner believed, that shaped the earth as we know it now.

  I was taken by this description of the history of the earth because it explained how the fossils of clams, oysters, fish, and other sea creatures that I found in the cliffs had come to be there.

  The next day when I told Lizzie that I had been to the Philpot sisters’ house on Silver Street, her gray eyes widened with amazement. “Oh, go on! You really went?” she asked.

  “Miss Elizabeth Philpot invited me.”

  “But you needn’t have accepted, Mary. You don’t belong up on Silver Street,” she told me in her knowing way. I did not answer and we continued with our work, I with my fossil preparation and she with her sewing. A few minutes later she looked up from her sewing and asked, “Weren’t you uncomfortable?”

  “Why should I be? They were very courteous and kind. They made me feel very comfortable. They insisted that I stay to tea and that I have second helpings of everything.”

  “But Miss El
izabeth Philpot is old. She is at least thirty, Mary, and not married,” Lizzie said. “From the looks of it, she will never be, poor dear. While she is not a lady—they say her father is in trade—she is rich. I shouldn’t have liked it.”

  “But I did like it,” I insisted stubbornly. “Miss Elizabeth is interested in fossils and geology. We have things to talk about. She loaned me a book.”

  Lizzie shrugged. “I should have known that it was because of the curiosities,” she said. “They are always leading you into strange places. But come now, tell me all about it.” Which I proceeded to do in some detail.

  DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATIONS

  Soon after we brought the crocodile’s body up from the beach, I sent another message to Squire Henley informing him that I now had the complete fossil. Still the squire did not come.

  Weeks passed and I worked on the fossil, cleaning away some of the Lias in which it was embedded so that it stood out better. The more I worked on the fossil, the more I doubted that it was a crocodile.

  My doubts and the squire’s failure to appear made me anxious. I had been counting on selling the fossil to him. Had I simply misunderstood him that day when he had jumbled the vertebrae? I so desperately wanted to make money that it was possible that I heard him say what I wished him to say. After all, he was the richest man in the district, and also a collector. What if he did not come? Would I dare sell the fossil to someone else when he was our landlord and he had made me promise to keep it for him? Others besides Miss Philpot had made offers. What if I sold it and then he appeared?

  My anxiety was not helped by the advice of our friends and neighbors. Thanks to Mama, they knew of Miss Philpot’s offer, and they all had something to say about how I should deal with the squire.

  Mr. Littlejohn told me to ask at least sixty-five pounds. “He won’t give you that, but if you start high, you’ll end up high,” he said.

  When I went to Mr. Adams to have the chisels sharpened I was told, “You were searching for the body for more a year. The squire should make it worth your while. It is not as if he can buy petrified crocodiles elsewhere.”

  “Don’t let him get away with giving you less because you’re a lass,” Mrs. Lapham at the market told me when I went to buy cheese. “Let Joseph do the talking for you.” She shook her head and corrected herself, “No, he won’t do, too young. Your mama should talk for the family. Oh, if only your papa was alive, he would know how to get the most out of Henley. Richard Anning always knew how to deal with the gentry.”

  Finally, shortly after the new year began, the squire came marching into the shop unannounced. Spying the fossil that was laid out on the workshop floor, he went directly to it and dropped to his knees beside it. “So the talk is true! It really does exist! Amazing!”

  He examined the fossil for some time in silence while I looked on anxiously. “I believe this is the fossil that you had in mind, sir. And as I promised, I have saved it for you.” He grunted and continued his examination. Anxious, I went on, “But I do not think it is a crocodile.”

  At this he looked up. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  I explained that its shape wasn’t like the picture of a crocodile I had seen in a book. It did not have feet, or at least I could not find them. Also its nostrils were in the wrong position. Then realizing that he might not want it if it was not a crocodile, I added, “But it is a spectacular curiosity, all the same, sir. The biggest I have heard about, seventeen feet when you measure it with all of its vertebrae. You remember, sir, it was the vertebrae that caught your eye that day when you told me that you would buy the creature from me, if ever I found it.”

  “Yes indeed, it is spectacular. Seventeen feet, you say? It will cause quite a sensation.” Then looking at me sharply, he asked, “Where did you say you found this fossil?”

  Not understanding the importance of the question, I told him that I found it at the far end of Church Cliffs.

  “It was in a piece of the cliff that broke off and fell to the beach, was it not?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  I only understood why he was asking these questions a few minutes later when he offered me twenty pounds, saying, “That would be a fair price for the thing, especially since it was in the cliffs on my land to begin with. Generous I should think.”

  Hearing this figure that was less, much less than I had hoped for and less than Miss Philpot offered, my face reddened and I was upset, though I tried to remain calm.

  Seeing my response, Squire Henley cleared his throat. “No, I think twenty pounds is too little, twenty-three pounds would be a better price.”

  And twenty-three pounds it was. I could do nothing but accept, since he claimed that it came from his land. I was angry at myself for allowing him to get the better of me, and for allowing myself to get carried away with empty dreams. What a fool I had been!

  I heard that Squire Henley bought the crocodile on behalf of Bullock’s Egyptian Hall, a giant exhibition hall in Piccadilly Circus in London. People come there to see the wonders of natural history that Mr. Bullock has collected from the South Seas, North and South America, and Africa. My fossil is their most popular exhibit.

  A CHANCE MEETING

  Discovering the crocodile had a profound effect on my life. It not only eased our financial burdens and made me wonder what had happened to the animals whose petrified remains I found, it also led me to become acquainted with a class of people whom I would not ordinarily know, like the Philpot sisters. This, in turn, has led to a coolness in my relations with my neighbors and old acquaintances in town and a rift between Lizzie and me. But I am getting ahead of myself now. Painful though it may be, I have to describe as honestly as I can my meeting with Henry de la Beche (because my relations with him have cost me dearly).

  Not long after Squire Henley purchased the crocodile, sometime during the spring of 1813, I was working alone on an isolated ledge in the area of Black Ven when I had a queer, prickly feeling that someone was watching me. I turned round and started at the sight of a tall, well-dressed boy, about seventeen years old with sandy-colored hair, standing behind me. “Hello, Mary,” he said. His deep blue eyes sparkled with merriment.

  Who was this strange young master, and why was he laughing at me, I wondered. I knew he was a gentleman by his clothes—tight-fitting trousers, rather than breeches, a white shirt, and a striped vest, topped by a navy coat. Realizing that I did not remember him, he introduced himself as Henry de la Beche and reminded me that Dr. Carpenter introduced us once when he came to see the crocodile. Then I remembered that he was the young man whom everyone in Lyme was gossiping about. They said he was to come into an income of three thousand pounds a year. A fabulous sum!

  He told me that he heard the ring of my hammer when he was down on the beach and climbed up to see who it was. “I’ve been meaning to call on you for some time. And now, luckily, I’ve bumped into you here.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think of to say. For a moment there was an awkward silence during which we stood there and looked at one another until it occurred to me to ask why he wanted to see me.

  “Geology and fossils,” he replied without hesitation. “What else?”

  I do not know what it was except perhaps coyness that led me to say, “Oh, there are many other things, sir,” but that is what I said. I am embarrassed by it even now!

  “Not with you, I am told,” he countered. “Your industry and keen eye are the talk of the town. And what I have seen convinces me that what they say is true. I have been standing here for several minutes watching you, and you did not even know I was here.”

  He smiled at me, shaking his head in wonderment, and suddenly I found myself confessing to this stranger that I often lose myself when I am working. I even told him about being caught by the tide and having to climb the cliffs to escape, a story that I had been ashamed of until that moment. I made much of the danger and hardship, but I did not mention smuggling, or losing my tools.

 
As I was telling this story, I noticed that he was peering over my shoulder at the cliff where I had been working. When I finished my tale, he asked, “Do you have another crocodile here?”

  “Sir, I do not know what it is,” I said.

  A smile played at the corner of his lips. “You are being mysterious.”

  “No, not at all, sir,” I insisted. “It seems like it might be a bone, but I am not even certain of that.” I traced the outline with my chisel for him.

  His face grew serious. “I don’t know how you saw that it was there. I know I would have walked by and seen nothing. No wonder you found the crocodile.” He offered to help me break the fossil out of the cliff.

  It was so strange an offer coming from a young gentleman like him that for a moment I thought that he might be having fun at my expense, but before I could think of how to respond, he said, “I am strong even if I am not skilled.”

  “The cliff is hard and dry, and I was just about to give up,” I said.

  “You’re afraid that I will hurt it,” he guessed.

  “Oh no, sir. It’s not that,” I protested. “I really must get back to prepare some curiosities for the shop before the coach arrives tomorrow.”

  He seemed to be genuinely disappointed, and all of a sudden I felt sorry that I didn’t let him help me. “If you are going my way, sir, perhaps we can go back to town together,” I suggested.

  At this his face became animated. “Perfect! That will give me a chance to pick your brains. You see, I have become fascinated by geology since my return to Lyme,” he said. “Dr. Carpenter has been kind enough to let me read his geology books. It was he who suggested that I could learn a great deal from you.”

  “That is most kind of Dr. Carpenter,” I said, “but I’m afraid he might be overestimating how much I know.”