a fragment of the anterior face of this jaw in which the incisors were
planted. There was found at the same time a humerus epiphysized
at its two extremities.” He remarks on the teeth also, — “ This
would he a process of dentition intermediate between that of man
and of living monkeys, except the Gibbon Siamang, in which I have
observed the same circumstances of dentition as in our fossil monkey.
(This gives me an opportunity to remember that the Gibbons, and in
particular the Gibbon Siamang, placed generally by zoologists in the
last rank of the tribe of Simians, or Superior Monkeys, furnish notwithstanding,
through their skeleton, a totality of characteristics
approaching very much more considerably the human type than one
can find in the Orang, or even in the Chimpanzee.)”
“ In résumé, the new fossil monkey comes evidently to place itself,
with some superior characters at certain points of view, in the group
of the Simians, which already comprises the Chimpanzee, the Orang,
the Gorilla, the Gibbons, and the little fossil Monkey of Sausan (Plio-
pithecus antiquus, Gerv.). It differs from all these monkeys through
some dental details ; and, more manifestly still, by the very-apparent
shortening of the face. The reduced size of the incisors being allied
with great development of the molars indicates a regimen essentially
frugiverous. The little that is known, furthermore, of the bony
structure of the limbs, denotes more of agility than muscular energy.
One would he, therefore, thus induced to suppose that this Monkey,
of very large size, lived habitually upon trees, as do the Gibbons
of the present epoch. In consequence I will propose to designate it
by the generic name of Dryopithecus (from drus, tree, oak [found likewise
amongst the lignites of the same Pyrensean region], and pithe-
kos, monkey). In dedicating it as species to the enlightened naturalist
to whom palaeontology is indebted for this important acquisition,
it would be the Dryopithecus Fontani:
“ Six fossil monkeys, then, are henceforward to he counted in Europe,
viz : two in England, the Macacus eocenus, Owen, and the Macar
cus pliocenus, id. ; three in France, the Pliopitheeus antiquus, the Dryopithecus
Fontani, and the Semnopithecus monspessulanus, which is
probably the same as the Pithecus maritimus of M. de Christol.
Lastly, the monkey of Pikermi, in Greece, named by M. A. Wagner
Mezopithecus pentelicus. M. Gaudry and I propose, in our Memoir
on the fossil bones of Pikermi, which will he soon presented to the
Academy, to attach this monkey to the group of Semnopitheci, under
the name of Semnopithecus pentelicus.”
Bones of the Macrotherium, Rhinoceros, Dicrocerus elegans, &c.,
were also collected at the same spot, by M. Fontan, and in the same
medium tertiary (miocene) deposits.
!] Thus, in one short month since this essay was commenced, advancing
science has added another grand link to the chain of organic
remains which now connects the faunas of the past old world with
those of the present. Already, from the previously known fossil
Gibbon, not a far remove from human likeness, we have mounted up,
in the graduated scale of organization, to the level of the highest
living anthropomorphous apes (Orang-utan,™ Chimpanzee, and Gorilla),
through this precious discovery of Dryopithecus Fontani.
It will opportunely exemplify how prepared really-scientific men
are now, all over the world, for these revelations from “ the Book of
N a tu r ewhich cannot lie,” to present here an extract from the address
of my friend P rof. R id d e l l , delivered at Hew Orleans, on the
25th Feb., 1856 some six months before M. L artet announced at
Paris this astounding “ confirmation.”
“ I must allude in very general terms to the recent progress of
Geology. The philosophical views of Lyell, respecting the dynamical
causes that have produced the geological aspect of our planet
during the lapse of past ages, are gaining more and more fully the
assent of the cultivators of this science. Instead of evoking, as a
probable cause, the agency of imaginary cataclysms, or general and
sudden convulsions of nature, to explain the origin of mountain
upheavals, terrene depressions, the petrifaction of organic remains,
the extinction of successive races of animals and plants, the induration,..
crystallization, and disintegration of rock strata, Mr. Lyell
alleges that we have reason to suppose all these, and more, have
resulted from the long-continued agency of such dynamic causes as
continue to manifest their action at the present time. In some instances,
the effects produced are hardly appreciable during the brief
period of human life; hut we should remember that the stately hundred
years, which is rarely approached, and still more rarely exceeded
by mafy when used as a measure for the probable duration of those
vast periods of time occupied in the production and modification of
the numerous successive geological strata, with their mineral contents
and organic remains, becomes, to our limited comprehension,
a mere infinitesimal; a quantity too small to have assigned to it any
sensible value in comparison.
“ The recent period, so called, now in progress, contains the relies
of animals and plants, of species essentially identical with those now
nourishing. It has been estimated, from data carefully obtained and
‘‘Utan“ 'Maa,ay; S B S S I °nl7 p i and iS prefixed t0 P™PCT of all nations;
( M a Z ’ d r m S T n : lg n a i f M “ ° r a n g -U ta n ” a s th e * « « « . w h i c h C r a w f o r d
j P B G f H I m B '* Orang-utang,” its true Malayan name
S Miyas. Still (p. 198), Utan is given as the synonym for wild, wiUkmem.