346 STRUCTUEE AND ADAPTATION OF TEETH 



tively dropping to the more natural position on 

 all fours. 



Professor Owen has appropriately remarked, in 

 his masterly treatise on this subject, that " no 

 quadrumanous animal, and few other mammals, 

 offer a greater contrast with man in the form and 

 structure of the cranium than does the great male 

 gorilla." 



We have now taken a discursive review of some 

 of the more prominent types of dentition among 

 the inferior animals, and it remains for us to 

 consider their bearings upon the human dentition. 

 On a subject so familiar to you as the struc- 

 ture of the human teeth, I need only refer to 

 those striking characteristics in form and posi- 

 tion which distinguish them from those of the 

 brute creation. 



EiG. h^.— Skull of Monkey. 



The crowns of all the teeth are nearly of equal 

 length, and there is less general dissimilarity of 

 size than in the apes. The incisors are less 

 massive, and more delicate in outline, the late- 



