A RARE 19TH CENTURY VISITOR'S BOOK WITH EXTRAORDINARY MONOLOGUE BY GIDEON ALGERNON MANTELL (1790-1852) AND SIGNED BY CHARLES WATERTON (BRITISH, 1865 - 1782), AMONGST MANY OTHERS, With hand painted illustrations and drawings. Probably from Yorkshire country house. The entry written by Gideon Algernon Mantell, geologist and palaeontologist, Chester Square, Pimlico, December 1849: 'If I have been so fortunate as to kindle in the hearts of others, that intense desire for the acquisition of natural knowledge which I feel in my own: - or have illumined the mental vision with that intellectual light, which once kindled can never be extinguished, and which reveals to the soul the beauty and wisdom, and harmony of the works of the Eternal. I shall indeed rejoice for then my exertions will not have been in vain and although my humble name may be soon forgotten, and all record of my labour be effaced. Yet the influence of that knowledge which has emanated from my researches will endure forever, and by conducting to new an inexhaustible fields of inquiry, prove a never failing source of the most pure and elevated gratification. For to one imbued with a taste of natural science, Nature unfolds her hoarded poetry and her hidden spells: for him there is a voice in the winds, and a language in the wave, and he is ...even as one... Who by some secret gift of soul or eye. In envy spot beneath the smiling sun. See's where the springs of living writers lie!' Signed 'Gideon Algernon Mantell'.