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"The world has treated me so (17) .......... that I fear it has rendered me suspicious of all those around me."
These are the words of one of Victorian England's most (18) .......... scientific minds — a palaeontologist and fossil hunter who devoted a lifetime to scouring the cliffs of southern England. Her knowledge and (19) .......... made a profound contribution to the development of geological thought.
Her origins were unlikely: one of ten children, (20) .......... in 1799 to a carpenter and his wife in the small coastal town of Lyme Regis, with a modest education and restricted access to books. Yet her father's supplementary trade — selling fossils to visitors — afforded the young scientist an invaluable early grounding in practical fieldwork. The family's modest shop became celebrated throughout Europe as a destination for (21) .......... collectors and enthusiasts in their thousands.
The fierce storms that batter England's southern coastline regularly trigger landslides, exposing new fossil beds. Retrieving specimens swiftly from unstable cliff faces is hazardous work. Yet this (22) .......... and perilous labour yielded some of the most astonishing (23) .......... in the history of palaeontology: ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pterosaurs all came to light through her efforts.
And yet, despite this extraordinary record, she was refused membership of the prestigious Geological Society of London, and her work appeared in scientific journals only once during her lifetime. What accounts for this (24) .......... ? Mary Anning was a woman.