PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS, ETC. 367 



m.m. A Macrodont Tasmanian skull, in the Museum of 

 the Royal College of Surgeons of England, has a molar 

 series that measures 35 m.m.; the molar series of a Malay 

 skull, in the Museum of Natural History, South Kensing- 

 ton, measures fully 35 m.m., while approximations to these 

 measurements in Macrodont races are not uncommon. But 

 in none of these skulls do the wisdom teeth rival the 15*3 

 m.m. breadth of the Bengawan tooth, the nearest approach 

 being 14-3 m.m., observed in a South Kensington Malay 

 skull. 



The three fangs of the Spy wisdom teeth are not con- 

 joined and fused together as so commonly occurs in modern 

 man, but are separate and distinct as in many Australians 

 and negroid individuals. The two inner fangs of the Benga- 

 wan tooth are conjoined. 



The four cusps and oblique ridge of the Spy wisdom 

 teeth are fully developed, a development which Cope l has 

 seen only once, and that in the tooth of an x^ustralian 

 native. This eminent authority regards the Spy wisdom 

 teeth as characteristic and representative of the early 

 human race, and in the full development of their cusps 

 as an approximation to the common and simian type. 



The imperfect development of the upper wisdom teeth 

 is not infrequently stated to be a human attribute ; the 

 extent of the imperfection is human ; to a greater or less 

 degree it is met with in the wisdom teeth of most chimpan- 

 zees, many orangs, and gibbons, but very seldom in the 

 gorilla and siamang. The development of cusps, seen in 

 the Bengawan tooth, is a condition not uncommonly 

 occurring in the wisdom teeth of orangs, chimpanzees, and 

 some negroid individuals. The cusps have become sub- 

 divided. The antero-internal cusp (= A. I.), which forms 

 the larger half of this tooth, shows an indistinct separation 

 into three parts. The ridge, which proceeds from this 

 cusp to join with the ridge from the opposite cusp A.E. to 

 form the anterior " rein " of Topinard, 2 is fully developed. 



1 American Naturalist, vol. xxvii., p. 316. 



- L AntJu'opolo^ie, 1892, p. 641. 

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