The Gideon Mantell collection, New Zealand

Abstract

One of the regrettably least used major collections of original material pertaining to nineteenth-century British geology is that of Gideon Mantell, which since 1927 has been housed within the prestigious Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Although the geographical remoteness of New Zealand makes it impossible for most British and American historians of science to work personally at the Turnbull, I was able to do so recently while