other researchers were: Petrus Camper, Adriaan Gilles Camper, Faujas de Saint Fond, and
Cuvier.
Petrus Camper and his son Adriaan Gilles performed a detailed analysis of the specimen that
was eventually to end up in Paris in 1782. 5 Locals had identified it as the remains of a
crocodile, but some years later, when Camper was in London, he could compare further
specimens he had collected around Maastricht with crocodile bones from the Royal College of
Surgeons’ collection, and concluded that there were significant differences with the
Maastricht animal. In Camper’s opinion, what had been found in Maastricht were the
remains of a sperm whale. He published his findings in the Royal Society’s Philosophical
Transactions in 1786. Four years later van Marum followed his mentor and concluded that the
fossil in the Teyler Foundation’s possession also stemmed from a whale.87 Then, in his 1799
treatise on the fossils of Maastricht, Faujas suddenly claimed that the elder Camper had
changed his mind shortly before his death in 1789, and started to claim the fossil consisted of
the remains of a crocodiled which happened to coincide with Faujas’ own assessment.
Faujas’ claim now in turn caught the attention of the younger Camper, who had established an
intense correspondence with Cuvier just a while before.88 Adriaan Gilles was convinced that
Faujas had obtained the wrong impression from his father, and had his unpublished papers
and correspondence to prove it. This in turn was of great interest to Cuvier, who was at odds
with Faujas over many things, including Faujas’ notion that fossil bones did not stem from
extinct species, but represented creatures that had simply not been discovered yet because
they were now at home in unexplored areas of central Africa. The renewed study of the
Maastricht fossil along with other specimens from the elder Camper’s exquisite collection -
now in his son’s possession — led Adriaan Gilles to conclude in 1800 that the mosasaur was
neither a whale nor a crocodile, but in fact some sort of marine lizard. This, in turn, bolstered
Cuvier’s - rather than Faujas’ — views on extinction and the status of fossil bones because it
indicated that “the Maastricht fauna contained no mammals at all and no crocodiles; it
belonged more clearly than ever to a distinct former world”.89
So how is all this relevant to van Marum’s handling of the fossil collection at Teylers? First
and foremost, it helps to understand why van Marum’s interest in the earth sciences was
reignited during the last years of the 18‘ century. In a nutshell, one could say that he first
acquired the mosasaur in 1782 at least in part because of Petrus Camper’s interest in the fossil
bones of Maastricht, and then, when Cuvier practically rose to stardom with his ideas on
extinction and the mosasaur itself even moved centre stage in these debates following Faujas’
studies of the Maastricht fossils, van Mamm’s scientific curiosity would inevitably have been
85 Pieters, “Natural History Spoils in the Low Countries in 1794/95: The Looting o f the Fossil Mosasaurus from
Maastricht and the Removal o f the Cabinet and Menagerie o f Stadholder William V,” 57.
86 Rudwick, Bursting the Limits o f Time: The Reconstruction o f Geohistory in the Age o f Revolution, 255.
87 Martinus van Marum, “Beschryving der beenderen van den kop van eenen visch: gevonden in den St.
Pietersberg by Maastricht, en geplaatst in Teylers museum,” vol. 8, Verhandelingen uitgegeven door Teyler’s
Tweede Genootschap (Haarlem: J. Enschede; J. van Walre, 1790), 383-389.
On this see: Bert Theunissen, “De briefwisseling tussen A. G. Camper en G. Cuvier,” Tijdschrift voor de
Geschiedenis der Geneeskunde, Natuurwetenschappen, Wiskunde en Techniek 3, no. 4 (1980): 155—177;
Rudwick, Bursting the Limits o f Time: The Reconstruction o f Geohistory in the Age o f Revolution, 381-384.
89 Rudwick, Bursting the Limits o f Time: The Reconstruction o f Geohistory in the Age o f Revolution, 384.
piqued, and he would have wanted in on the action. What’s more all these developments
would have resonated with him on many levels: he was for instance well acquainted
personally with some of the key figures in these debates, such as both of the Campers (van
Marum corresponded extensively with Adriaan Gilles too) and Faujas. As a result, he was
privy to the latest developments - for example he provided Faujas with exquisite depictions of
some fossils for his book, which were carefully crafted by Wybrand Hendriks.90 Van Marum
was also well acquainted with some of the key collections important in any discussion - such
as Petrus Camper’s, the former collections of the Dutch Stadhouder, and of course his own —
besides the mosasaur Teylers Museum was home to many other specimens from the
Maastricht region. What’s more, through his own background and training van Marum was
uniquely qualified to participate in the debates that were raging - he had after all completed
his training at university with comparative studies, and in some sense Cuvier had picked up
where van Marum’s mentor had left off: alongside John Hunter in London and Buffon in
Paris, Petrus Camper had been “among the most significant contributors to the debate [on
fossil bones]”.91 Finally, the buzz Cuvier created coincided with van Marum’s loss of interest
in electricity and chemistry.
14. A Rekindled Love Affair
The most spectacular fossil van Marum subsequently purchased for Teylers Museum - one of
the museum’s highlights to this d a y ^ needs to be seen against the background of these
discussions: when he travelled to Switzerland in 1802 in search of geological specimens, van
Marum acquired the “homo diluvii testis”, a fossil that had previously been acquired by the
earth scientist Johann Jacob Scheuchzer after it was unearthed in Southern Germany in
1725.92 Scheuchzer then classified this fossil as the remains of a human who had not survived
the deluge. This was sensational, because by this time one of the nagging doubts about the
biblical account of the catastrophic flood was that no remains of humans could be found, even
though the deluge had of course purportedly been intended as a final punishment for all those
sinners that didn’t make it onto the Ark. Scheuchzer’s fossil therefore had the potential to
serve as strong evidence in favour of the biblical account.
By the time van Marum visited Switzerland, Scheuchzer had been dead for a long time and
his assessment of the homo diluvii had largely been discredited - Petrus Camper had already
argued persuasively that what this fossil in fact constituted were the remains of a lizard - but
the fossil itself was of renewed interest in light of all the recent discussion concerning
extinction. In fact it required all of van Marum’s persuasive charm to buy this specimen off
Scheuchzer’s grandson. But back in Haarlem, all efforts proved worthwhile when it garnered
90 Bert Sliggers, “Krijtfossielen teruggevonden,” Teylers Magazijn 114 (2012): 12-14.
91 Rudwick Bursting the Limits o f Time: The Reconstruction o f Geohistory in the Age o f Revolution, 351
92 On this fossil and van Marum’s acquisition o f it see: Bert Sliggers, De zondvloedmens: van catastrofe naar
evolutie (Amsterdam: Nieuw Amsterdam, 2009).