August 26, 1922] 



NA TURE 



Hesperopithecus, the Anthropoid Primate of Western Nebraska. 



By Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn, American Museum of Natural History, New York. 



EVERY discovery directly or indirectly relating 

 to the pre-history of man attracts world-wide 

 attention and is apt to be received either with too great 

 optimism or with too great incredulity. One of my 

 friends, Prof. G. Elliot Smith, has perhaps shown too 

 great optimism in his most interesting newspaper and 

 magazine articles on Hesperopithecus, while another 

 of my friends, Dr. A. Smith Woodward, has shown too 

 great incredulity in his article in Nature of June 10. 

 It is in reply to both these extremes that I have 

 especially prepared for Nature additional information 

 regarding the fauna and habitat of this new Primate, 

 and additional figures to show the comparison between 



Book of Job (xii. 8), " Speak to the earth and it shall 

 teach thee." In brief, I advised Mr. Bryan to drop all 

 his books, as well as his attempts to grasp the meaning 

 of the diversity of opinion among scientific writers, and 

 to inquire of the earth only what it had to teach him. 

 I added that he would not necessarily lose his religion, 

 but that he would certainly become an evolutionist. 



I presume it is widely known that Mr. Bryan is a 

 native and prominent citizen of the State of Nebraska, 

 and it is certainly a humorous coincidence that on 

 March 14, only nine days after my advice was given, 

 I received from the western part of the State of 

 Nebraska the tooth from which has been named the 



Fig. 1. — Upper Miocene and Pliocene distribution of the Strepsicerine and Hippotragine Antelopes. Known distribution 



in black, hypothetical migration area in oblique lines. 



X, Region of western Nebraska, Snake Creek beds, site of the discovery of the Hesperopithecus tooth. 



the small, water-worn, type tooth of the genus (Fig. 2, 

 1-4) and the teeth which most nearly resemble it. 



First, a word regarding the time and circumstances 

 of the discovery of this Primate which happen to have 

 a humorous side. Fresh and very violent attacks on 

 the Darwinian theory have been made during the last 

 two or three years all over the United States, especially 

 under the leadership of William Jennings Bryan, a 

 man of ingenious and fertile mind and persuasive 

 powers of oratory, gifted as a politician and as a religious 

 advocate. As an opponent to Darwinism, Mr. Bryan's 

 attack culminated in his very carefully prepared article 

 in the New York Times of Sunday, February 26, 1922, 

 in which he ably fortified his position by long quotations 

 from Prof. W. Bateson's Toronto address recently 

 published in Nature (April 29, p. 553), and by other 

 critics of Darwinism. The following Sunday, March 5, 1 

 replied to Mr. Bryan, and realising that quotations from 

 the highest scientific authorities in the world would not 

 have the slightest influence upon him or his followers, 

 I referred him to the writings of St. Augustine, also to 

 the Holy Scriptures, and especially to a passage in the 



NO. 2756, VOL. I IO] 



Ape of the Western World (Hesperopithecus). This 

 is the very first evidence, after seventy-five years of 

 continuous search in all parts of our great western 

 territory, of a Primate of any kind above the ranks 

 of the numerous Lemur - like and Tarsius - like lower 

 Primates which have long been known in our Eocene 

 beds. 



While we have all eagerly looked forward to such a 

 discovery, and I have always regarded it as possible, 

 I have never regarded it as probable, for the reason that 

 the higher Primates, seeking the protection of forests, 

 never venture out for long distances on the plains ; 

 moreover, accustomed to a forest fruit supply, they 

 would have been exposed to great dangers in migrating 

 from Asia to western North America except by the aid 

 of a continuous forest belt or of a rather dense forest 

 and savanna belt bordering a plains belt. In 1910 I 

 published in my "Age ol Mammals" (page 336, 

 Fig. 156) a map, which I now send to Nature for 

 reproduction (Fig. 1), with indications of such a life 

 belt for animals of the plains — antelopes and horses ; 

 adding an X to show where Hesperopithecus was found. 



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