388 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 



briefly and characteristically adds : " In view of this last fact, 

 Dr. Savage thought, as will be seen in his letter, that the spe- 

 cies should stand in my name ; but this I declined." 



This Memoir was read before this society on the 18th of 

 August, 1847, and was published before the close of the year. 

 But it had not, as it appears, come to Professor Owen's knowl- 

 edge when the latter presented to the London Zoological Soci- 

 ety, on the 22d of February, 1848, a memoir founded on three 

 skulls of the same species, just received from Africa through 

 Captain Wags taff. When Professor Owen received the earlier 

 memoir, he wrote to compliment Professor Wyman upon it, 

 substituted in a supplementary note the specific name imposed 

 by Savage and Wyman, and reprinted in an appendix the 

 osteological characters set forth by the latter. " It does not 

 appear, however [adds Dr. Wyman], either in the Proceed- 

 ings or the Transactions of the [Zoological] Society, at what 

 time our Memoir was published, nor that we had anticipated 

 him in our description." 



It is safe to assert that in this and the subsidiary papers of 

 Dr. Wyman may be found the substance of all that has since 

 been brought forward, bearing upon the osteological resem- 

 blances and differences between men and apes. After sum- 

 ming up the evidence he concludes : — 



" The organization of the anthropoid Quadrumana justifies 

 the naturalist in placing them at the head of the brute crea- 

 tion and placing them in a position in which they, of all the 

 animal series, shall be nearest to man. Any anatomist, how- 

 ever, who will take the trouble to compare the skeletons of the 

 Negro and Orang, cannot fail to be struck at sight with the 

 wide gap which separates them. The difference between the 

 cranium, the pelvis, and the conformation of the upper ex- 

 tremities of the Negro and Caucasian, sinks into comparative 

 insignificance when compared with the vast difference which 

 exists between the conformation of the same parts in the 

 Negro and the Orang. Yet it cannot be denied, however 

 wide the separation, that the Negro and Orang do afford the 

 points where man and the brute, when the totality of their 

 organization is considered, most nearly approach each other." 



