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was applied by Buffon to a pretended large species of orang-outan, 
the mere imaginary product of his combinations. Then he says that 
Wurmb, a naturalist of Batavia, transferred the name (Pongo) to a 
monkey in Borneo, which he thinks identical with Pithecus Satyrus 
(the real orang-outan, a red orang of Asia). 
“* My excellent friend, the Rev. J. L. Wilson, missionary of the 
Am. Bd. of Comm. For. Missions to this part of Africa, thinks that 
Pongo comes from ‘ Mpongive,’ the name of the tribe, and con- 
sequently the region, on the banks of the Gaboon river near its 
mouth, among which tribe he has resided for about five years. 
The tribe once extended a great distance on the coast above and 
below the river Gaboon, and the languages spoken for a great 
distance both above and below are evidently but dialects, with the 
Mpongive, of one language. Whence Buffon professed to receive 
his specimen of ‘large species of orang-outan’ I know not; but 
this region and its vicinity indefinitely are the only points at which, 
so far as I can ascertain, ‘a large species of orang-outan’ has been 
heard of except the chimpanzee, which is now well-known. I have 
seen it mentioned that the skeleton of the Pongo of Borneo is in the 
Royal College of Surgeons, of which Institution you are a Professor. 
Now may I solicit your aid in this matter? I will send you outlines 
of the skull of the male and female (adults), and ask the favour of 
a reply to my letter, stating whether you can identify them with 
that of any animal you know of under the name of Pongo, or any 
other cognomen. I have no correspondent in Paris; if you feel 
sufficient interest in the subject, will you do me the favour to as- 
certain from that city the fact whether such skulls exist in any 
cabinet there? The natives state that a young one was caught 
many years ago and sold to a French captain who never returned, 
and that it was the only individual taken out of the river. From 
what I know, the young skull would very much resemble that of 
the chimpanzee. I have four crania (two male and two female), 
with many bones, though not a perfect skeleton; but I hope to 
complete one before I leave the river, and to procure a dead sub- 
ject, which I shall preserve in spirits. Great uncertainty however 
attends my success, as they are indescribably fierce and dangerous, 
and are found only far in the interior; they are killed by elephant- 
hunters only in self-defence. - 
«Below you have a sketch of the cranium of the male (No. 1) 
and female (No. 2), executed for me by Mrs. Prince, the wife of 
Dr. Prince, the English Baptist Missionary at Fernando Po, who is 
here for a short time in search of health. a, a are two low ridges 
converging as seen in the sketch, and uniting at 2, and forming a 
strong prominent ridge in the course of the sagittal suture, which 
comes into a junction with a lateral ridge, d, sent back from the 
petrous portion of such temporal bone; e is a strong fossa of tri- 
angular shape between the ridges a, a. The space between the 
zygoma and temporal bone in a transverse direction is 13 inch deep ; 
the diameter from before backwards 3 inches; at 6 is a sinus 
about half an inch in depth and an inch in length, with foramina 
