5- SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 93 



Hemisphere the announcement created a considerable stir in paleonto- 

 logic and anthropological circles. Certain scientists inclined to accept 

 the identification, but others, particularly Smith Woodward in Eng- 

 land, suspected that the find had received an inappropriate name and 

 that instead of representing the primate stem it should he compared 

 with the last lower molar in primitive bears, notably Hxaeiiarcfos.^" 

 To the layman it may seem incomprehensible that such a wide diver- 

 gence of opinion could prevail among acknowledged leaders of paleon- 

 tologic science, yet it must be remembered that man and the anthropoid 

 apes as well as the pig and the bears are all omnivorous animals of 

 widely variable diet and that their generalized dentition reflects the 

 catholic nature of their tastes. Let the scoffer compare certain of 

 the molar teeth of the domestic pig and man, and the difficulty will 

 become apj^arent. When much-worn teeth of long extinct forms are 

 thus compared, the problem is far more difficult. The matter, how- 

 ever, of a seemingly premature identification on somewhat slender 

 evidence is not so easily explained. 



In 1923 W. K. Gregory and M. Hellman published two brief papers 

 containing notes on the tooth in question." In the first paper Matthew 

 determined the age of the find as early Pliocene, equivalent in a broad 

 way to Lower Pliocene (Hipparion fauna) in Europe. The authors 

 state that the tooth is very dififerent from those of Hyacnarctos and 

 conclude that Osborn was probal)ly correct in assigning it to a hitherto 

 unknown form of the higher ])rimates. The second paper is mainly 

 taken up with a detailed argument as to the probable place of the tooth 

 in the carnivore, anthropoid, or human series, Gerrit S. Miller, Jr. 

 propounding the questions to be answered. The authors concluded that 

 while the exact generic diagnosis of HcsperopitJiccns must await 

 further discoveries they return with more confidence to their conclu- 

 sions that it is probably a second upper molar of a hitherto unknown 

 anthropoid ape resembling the gorilla and chimpanzee rather than the 

 orang. Meanwhile further excavations in the Snake Creek Ijeds were 

 being carried on by A. Thomson, who was sent out by H. F. Osborn. 

 Vov a brief period the controversy slumbered, awaiting the discovery 

 of fiu'ther evidence of a less debatable nature. 



New fuel of a decidedly sensational nature was added to the discus- 

 sion by Osborn in a report to the American Philosophical Society in 

 1927, in which, according to the article in Science, May 6, 1927," over 



■'"Woodward, 1922, p. 750. and PJoule, 1922, pp. 526-527. Compare l^lliot Smith. 

 1924, V, and pp. 6-7, and Wilder, 1926, p. 156. 



^'Gregory and Hellman, 1923 a, pp. 1-16, and 1923 b, pp. 509-532. 



" Vol. 65, no. 1688, Science-Supplement, p. X, 1927. Slightly corrected or 

 amended, same vol., no. 1690, .Science-Supplement, p. XIV, 1927. 



