DISCOVERY!!

Today I made a historical discovery.
I have been sort of chuckling under my breath for a month now when people in my department talk about the "historical discoveries" they've made- of a previously unknown book, or an obscure mysterious artifact that makes sense only in the context of the discoverer's new fabulous idea, or the fact that medieval Brits believed that crocodiles were monsters rather than reptiles. These are big deals, obviously, but I was a novice enough historian to be underwhelmed by these "discoveries". I also thought it was ridiculous to consider anything that is not science to be a "discovery". You discover a new species, or a new gene, or a new island, not an old forgotten book.
But now I know. I am of the initiate. I have discovered.
I'm writing my first essay on the role of the fossil preparator (the person who removes the rock from fossils and fixes up the broken parts so the paleontologist can study them, i.e. what I did at U of C for 4 years) in paleontological research. I'm also giving the history of a specimen that a preparator in London (my boss when I volunteered as a preparator there two years ago) worked on, to act as a case study of how preparation is done. This specimen is a pliosaur, a giant Jurassic marine reptile (think Loch Ness monster). It was found in 1848 in England, covered in plaster and cement to hold it together, and put on exhibit/stuck in storage for 150 years. The pliosaur's skull was recently re-prepared (all the old gunk was removed by my friend as I watched over his shoulder in 2006) and studied for a new article about pliosaur ancestry. So I have modern information about it from the museum in Dublin that owns it, from my friend who just prepared it, and from the researcher who just wrote an article about it. But I was missing the original article from 1863 announcing the fossil and giving it its scientific name. I looked all over the internet, I emailed everyone who knows about this fossil, I searched Cambridge online catalogues, and couldn't find it (however I did find, much to my chagrin, that the University of CHICAGO has the article...).
BUT thanks to my department's librarian who knows how to work the Cambridge library catalogue better than I do and was very polite about my catalogue ignorance, I finally had a classmark (= call number) for the journal I needed!!
I biked frantically through the rain to the University Library, rushed to the Rare Books room (after of course stowing my forbidden bag, raincoat, and ink pens in a locker), filled out a "book request form", tapped my foot for 30 minutes while someone searched the treasure trove of the UL Rare Book storage stacks, and THEN was handed an ancient leatherbound book of scientific knowledge from the 19th century... omg.
I stood at the Request Collection Counter and (breaking the rules by not setting up a cushioned Book Support Stand...) OPENED the journal. And there it was! My long-sought article about the new species of pliosaur! It was prefaced by a sentence in italics saying "Read by Mr. Bailey and Mr. Carte [the authors] in 1863". Read! This article was read aloud to an audience of people excited about science 150 years ago.
BEST YET- at the end of the article were two fold-out pages, the pin-up girls of 19th century science: DRAWINGS OF MY PLIOSAUR. (At this point the librarian came over presumedly to yell at me for neglecting the Book Support Stand procedure, but when he saw my face he laughed and asked me what I was reading. I gave him way more info than he wanted, I'm sure, but he politely shared my enthusiasm.)
I was amazed. It was like coming upon a friend in a history book. I wanted to wave and ask my pliosaur what it was like to be drawn in a scientific journal.
Right, so the discovery, besides the surprise of actually finding the article in the usually useless University Library and finding that it included drawings, was that the fossil was drawn missing a foot. The pliosaur as it is now has 4 feet (paddles, really, for swimming), but it was found with 3 feet... somehow my fossil had regrown a foot?! FOSSIL FORGERY, 19th century style!
I'm sure people who have seen the body of the pliosaur already know that one foot is a fake (I've only seen the skull, and a cast of the body), but boy, does it make the history of the specimen more interesting. And it was a huge thrill to see something familiar in such an old piece of scientific research.
Phew, it's exhausting to geek out so completely... thanks for bearing with me. :)

Also, my pliosaur was found on July 27th, 1848. My birthday. It was meant to be.
A photo from Google of the cast of my pliosaur on display on a wall at the Natural History Museum in London- count the feet! Can you spot the fake??
(If you can, please clue me in... :) )