56 APFENDIX. 



my visit to you on the 10th Oct. last, any other opinion respecting tlie 

 small molar (now proved to be the second molar of a Macacus), than that 

 it resembled the molar of an opossum. 



Believe me, 



Very truly your's, 



RICHD. OWEN. 



Mr. Lyell therefore concludes, that Mr. Charlesworth, at some period 

 subsequent to the 10th Oct. last, learnt from Prof. O. that his opinion was 

 changed respecting the small molar, and Mr. C. must, by a confusion of 

 dates, have imagined that he had written his paper in August last, under 

 the impression that Mr. Owen had even then arrived at new views. 



Be this as it may, Mr. Lyell has always felt, that in similar circumstances, 

 had he been first informed that Prof. Owen and another gentleman of his 

 acquaintance had come to the conclusion that they possessed the first 

 fossil remain of an opossum from the London clay at Kyson, and were 

 about to publish the fact, and if he (Mr. L.), had afterwards obtained ano- 

 ther fossil from the same place, which he also believed to be an opossum, 

 he should not have felt at liberty to anticipate the announcement of the 

 analogous fact, without first communicating his intention to Prof. O. and 

 his friend. 



This feeling Mr. L. expressed to Mr. Wood, and afterwards to Mr. Col- 

 chester, when begging of him the loan of the opossum's jaw first described 

 by Mr. Charlesworth. 



Mr. L. however, is willing to admit Mr. C's explanation, that he did not 

 feel at liberty to interfere with the publication of a fact which others had 

 arrived at, and also to communicate this explanation to the only person 

 to whom he (Mr. L.) has spoken on the subject. 



At the same time Mr. L. takes this opportunity of expressing his con- 

 viction, from the tone of Mr. Charlesworth's first letter, that the reports 

 which Mr. C. had heard of what Mr. L. had said of him, must have been 

 misrepresentations or exaggerations. 

 10, Hart St., Nov. 1st, 1839. 



No. 36. 



Mr. Charlesworth having quitted London on the morning of the 1st in- 

 stant, to spend a week at Charing in Kent, has been unable to acknowledge 

 at an earlier period, Mr. Lyell's letter of that date, and to which he now 

 hastens to reply. 



The subject of complaint against Mr. Charlesworth seems to resolve 

 itself into the commission of a breach of courtesy on his part towards 

 Mr. Lyell and Professor Owen, in not having communicated to these gen- 

 tlemen his being in possession of, and his being about to publish in the 

 September ' Magazine of Natural History,' an opossum's tooth, with a 

 fragment of the jaw, obtained from a supposed bed of London clay near 

 Woodbridge. 



The accompanying statement (in a separate form), of the circumstances 

 under which Mr. Charlesworth published the fossil in question, and which 

 he trusts Mr. Lyell will favour him by perusing, will show how far the 

 assumed commission of this minor offence is born out by fact. 



The impression as to the nature of the charge preferred by Mr. Lyell 

 against Mr. Charlesworth, upon the minds of Mr. Charlesworth's 

 friends, in two separate instances, was widely different from the aspect 

 which the matter now wears ; but as the parties were strangers to each 



