6*2 APPENDIX. 



sively rested, would have been strange in the extreme. I presume, there- 

 fore, that your painful impression must have originated in some misconcej)- 

 tion which I will not attempt to explain : and still less will I endeavour to 

 reconcile your observation as to the necessity there would have been at Bir- 

 mingham, for waraing Mr. Lyell not to speak confidently of a Didelphys, 

 with your remark in Mr. Taylor's Journal, that your comparison of the 

 tooth in question at that time had been so cursory, that you would not 

 have considered yourself justified in publishing a statement of even its 

 affinities to, much less its identity with the above genus. 



To whatever genus or section among the " mixed feeders" you con- 

 ceived it likely, in the absence of the opossums or marsupials generally, 

 Mr. Lyell's specimen might be found to appertain, the necessity for warn- 

 ing Mr. I.yell as to the indefinite nature of the comparison you had then 

 made, must have been equally as urgent as it would have been had your 

 doubts been directed towards the group which I specified ; and I cannot 

 therefore comprehend the force or bearing of the observation in your 

 letter. 



I remain, dear Sir, 



Faithfully your's, 



Richd. Owen, Esq. 



EDWARD CHARLESWORTH. 



No. 40. 



Nov. 18, 1839. 



Mr. Charlesworth encloses to Mr. Lyell a copy of a letter addressed to 

 Mr. Charlesworth by Professor Owen, as it contains a statement at variance 

 with Mr. Charlesworth's own account (already in Mr. Lyell's hands), of 

 some circumstances connected with the publication of the London clay 

 mammiferous remains* 



Mr. Lyell will see that Professor Owen advances a fresh charge against 

 Mr. Charlesworth ; not, however, of any act committed by Mr. Charles- 

 worth, but of one which he intended to commit, had not that intention 

 been frustrated by Mr. Charlesworth's own communication of it to Pro- 

 fessor Owen ! ! ! 



This new charge implicates also Mr. Searles Wood, since Mr. Charles- 

 worth could not possibly have claimed the determination of the quadru- 

 manous fragment as his own, without that gentleman conniving at, and 

 becoming a party to the fraud. 



Before Mr. Charlesworth had seen, or before he had heard of the fossil 

 in question, Professor Owen had compared it and pronounced it to be iden- 

 tical with an existing Macacus, and upon Mr. Wood's subsequently 

 placing the specimen in Mr. Charlesworth's hands, Mr. Charlesworth com- 

 municated to Mr. Wood his doubts as to the correctness of Professor 

 Owen's identification, and which doubts have since proved to have been 

 well founded. 



From the complexion which the afi*air has now assumed, Mr. Charles- 

 worth plainly perceives that a determination has in some quarter been 

 formed to affix a stigma of a dishonourable kind to the share which he 

 has had in the publication of the London-clay mammiferous fossils ; and 

 rather than that a notion of this nature should be privately whispered, 

 Mr. Charlesworth thinks it better that the whole subject and correspon- 

 dence should be laid before the scientific public. 



