萬物簡史 第101期:勢不兩立的科學(xué)(9)

By this time, however, paleontological momentumhad moved to England. In 1812, at Lyme Regis onthe Dorset coast, an extraordinary child namedMary Anning—aged eleven, twelve, or thirteen,depending on whose account you read—found astrange fossilized sea monster, seventeen feet longand now known as the ichthyosaurus, embedded inthe steep and dangerous cliffs along the EnglishChannel.

然而，到這個時候，古生物研究的熱潮已經(jīng)移到英國。1812年，在多塞特郡的萊姆里吉斯，有個名叫瑪麗•安寧的杰出小女孩——當(dāng)時只有11歲、12歲或13歲，取決于你看的是誰寫的故事——發(fā)現(xiàn)一塊5米長、樣子古怪的海生動物化石，嵌在英吉利海峽岸邊一處陡峭而又危險的懸崖上。這類動物現(xiàn)在叫做魚龍。

It was the start of a remarkable career. Anning would spend the next thirty-five yearsgathering fossils, which she sold to visitors. (She is commonly held to be the source for thefamous tongue twister "She sells seashells on the seashore.") She would also find the firstplesiosaurus, another marine monster, and one of the first and best pterodactyls. Though noneof these was technically a dinosaur, that wasn't terribly relevant at the time since nobody thenknew what a dinosaur was. It was enough to realize that the world had once held creaturesstrikingly unlike anything we might now find.

安寧就這樣開始了她不同凡響的一生。在之后的35年里，安寧采集化石，并把它們賣給游客。(人們普遍認為，她就是那首著名的繞口令《她在海邊賣貝殼》的原始素材。)她還發(fā)現(xiàn)了第一塊蛇頸龍(另一種海生動物)化石以及第一批最好的翼手龍化石中的一塊。嚴格來說，這些都不是恐龍，但也沒有多大關(guān)系，因為當(dāng)時誰也不知道什么是恐龍。只要知道世界上生活過跟我們現(xiàn)在所能看到的完全不同的動物，這也就夠了。

It wasn't simply that Anning was good at spotting fossils—though she was unrivalled at that—but that she could extract them with the greatest delicacy and without damage. If you everhave the chance to visit the hall of ancient marine reptiles at the Natural History Museum inLondon, I urge you to take it for there is no other way to appreciate the scale and beauty ofwhat this young woman achieved working virtually unaided with the most basic tools in nearlyimpossible conditions. The plesiosaur alone took her ten years of patient excavation. Althoughuntrained, Anning was also able to provide competent drawings and descriptions for scholars.But even with the advantage of her skills, significant finds were rare and she passed most ofher life in poverty.

安寧不僅善于發(fā)現(xiàn)化石——顯然她在這方面是無與倫比的——而且能小心翼翼地、完好無損地把化石挖出來。要是你有機會去參觀倫敦自然史博物館的古代海生爬行動物館，我勸你不要錯過這個機會。只有在這里，你才能欣賞到這位年輕女子使用最簡單的工具，在極其困難的條件下，實際上是在孤立無援的情況下，所取得的巨大而又出色的成就。光挖那塊蛇頸龍化石她就耐心地花了10年時間。安寧沒有受過訓(xùn)練，但她也能為學(xué)者們提供像模像樣的圖片和說明。但是，盡管她具有這等技能，重大的發(fā)現(xiàn)畢竟是不多的，因此她一生的大部分時間是在極度貧困中度過的。