THE GREAT CHIMPANZEE. 



389 



§ 3. Indications and discovery of the adult Troglodytes Gorilla, Savage. 



The first intelligence which revived a feeling of faith and interest in the subject of the 

 notices above-cited from Battell and the continuator of Buffon, reached me in the early 

 part of last summer in a letter from Dr. T. S. Savage, a zealous and accomplished 

 Missionary of the Protestant Episcopalian establishment at New York, with whom I 

 had previously corresponded on the subject of the Chimpanzee, and by whom specimens 

 of the young animal had been transmitted from the west coast of Africa to the Royal 

 College of Surgeons in London. The letter in question was dated 



" Protestant Mission House, Gaboon River, West Africa, 



April 24, 1847. 



" My DE4R SiR,-Your kno«n interest in the zoology of Africa wiU find a ready excuse, I trust, for the fol- 

 lowing communication, and lead you in the midst of various engagements to give me a few moments in reply. I 

 am on my way to the United States in a vessel which, to complete its voyage, had to touch at this pomt. I 

 find it a region rich and untried in all the departments of natural history, besides being full of mterest in a far 

 more important point of view,-tl>at of a missionary field. I have found the existence of an animal of an extra- 

 ordinary character in this locality, and which 1 have reason to believe is unknown to the naturalist. As yet I 

 have been unable to obtain more than a part of a skeleton. It belongs to the Simiadae, and is closely alhed to 

 the Oran.'S proper. It reaches nearly if not quite the height of five feet in the adult state, and is of a large 

 size I am considerably in doubt in regard to its identity with an animal said to have been known to BufFon 

 as a large species of Orang-outang, under the name of Pongo. It is referred to in a note on the 58th page of 

 the 1st volume of the American edition of Cuvier's ' Regne Animal,' where he asserts that Pongo is a corruption 

 of Bog-o, which is given in Africa to the Chimpanzee or to the Mandrill, and was appUed by BuflFon to a pre- 

 tended large species of Orang-outang, the mere imaginary product of his combinations: and 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-utan, a red Orang of Asia). My excellent friend the Rev. J. L. Wilson, 

 Senior Missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to this part of Afnca, thinks 

 that Pongo comes from ' Mpongive,' the name of the tribe, and consequently 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 pro- 

 fessed to receive his specimen of "large species of Orang-outang" I know not, but this region and its vicinity 

 indefinitely are the only points at which, so far as 1 can ascertain, " a large species of Orang-outang" has been 

 heard of except the Chimpanzee, which is now well-known. I have seen it mentioned that the skeleton of the 

 Pon-o 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, statin? 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 ascertain 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 youn- skull would very much resemble that of the Chimpanzee. I have four crania (two mide and two 

 female) with many bones, though not a perfect skeleton, but I hope to complete one before I leave the river. 

 VOL. III. PART VI. •* 



