464 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LV, No. 1427 



On receiving the tooth, the author tele- 

 graphed (March 14, 1922): "Tooth just ar- 

 rived safely. Looks very promising Will 

 report immediately." A letter followed the 

 same day: 



The instant your package arrived, I sat down 

 with the tooth, in my window, and I said to my- 

 self: "It looks one hundred per cent, anthro- 

 poid." I then took the tooth into Dr. Matthew's 

 room and we have been comparing it with all the 

 books, all the casts and all the drawings, with the 

 conclusion that it is the last right upper molar 

 tooth of some higher Primate, but distinct from 

 anything hitherto described. We await, however, 

 Dr. Gregory's verdict to-morrow morning; he cer- 

 tainly has an eagle eye on Primate teeth. . . . We 

 may cool down to-morrow, but it looks to me as if 

 the first anthropoid ape of America had been 

 found by the one man entitled to find it, namely, 

 Harold J. Cook! 



On March 22, 1922, the author wrote : 



We believe we have found another one of the 

 teeth, very much worn, of the same animal, which, 

 so far as it goes, is confirmatory. The animal is 

 certainly a new genus of anthropoid ape, probably 

 an animal which wandered over here from Asia 

 ■with the large south Asiatic element which lias 

 recently been discovered in our fauna by Merriam, 

 Gidley and others. It is one of the greatest sur- 

 prises in the history of American paleontology 

 and I am delighted that you are the man wlio 

 found it. Our specimen is unrecognizable, it is so 

 much worn. 



The tooth arrived with the following label: 



One Molar Tooth, 'Anthropoid, No. HC425, 

 Collection of Harold J. Cook, Agate, Nebraska. 

 Found in Upper Phase of Snake Creek Beds, 

 Typical Locality, in position in gravels with other 

 fossils. 



Following the examination by Dr. William 

 D. Matthew and the author, who determined 

 the tooth as a second or third upper molar of 

 the light side of a new genus and species of 

 anthropoid, the tooth was submitted to Cvirator 

 William K. Gregory and Dr. Milo Hellnian, 

 both of whom have made a special study of 

 the collections of human and anthropoid teeth 

 in the American Museum and the United States 

 National Museum. They reported (JIareh 23, 

 1922) as follows: 



1. Such a degree of wear is very rarely seen on 

 m'5, and in view also of the marked diiference in 



form of m^, we rather incline to the opinion that 

 it is an m-. 2. The kind of wear shown in this 

 tooth, which has an evenly concave surface (with- 

 out humps representing the para- and metacones), 

 has never been seen in an anthropoid tooth, and 

 we are of the opinion that even in very old chim- 

 panzees the outer half of the crown will be un- 

 evenly worn. 3. The nearest in point of wearing 

 surface is the supposed m- attributed to Pithe- 

 canthropus, also in form of roots. The strong 

 hypoeone in ' ' Pithecanthropus ' ' and the absence 

 of hypoeone in the new specimen is not positively 

 diagnostic, in view of the immense differences in 

 the hypoeone, both in apes and man. 4. On the 

 ivhole, 'We think its nearest resemblances are with 

 "Pithecanthropus" and with men rather than 

 with apes. 



On the basis of these very careful studies, 

 the author decided to make this tooth the type 

 of the following new genus and species : 

 HesperopitUecus haroldcookii,^ new species 



This second upper molar tooth is very distant 

 from the gorilla type, from the gibbon type, from 

 the orang type ; among existing anthropoid apes 

 it is nearest to m^ of the chimpanzee, but the 

 resemblance is still very remote. It is excluded 

 from close afdnity to the fossil Asiatic anthro- 

 poid apes, such as Dryopithecus - punjdbicus, 

 Palieopithecus sivalensis, and Sivapithecus, re- 

 cently related to the human stem by Pilgrim. Its 

 transverse diameter of 11 mm. is greater than its 

 anteroposterior diameter of 10.5 mm. In the cor- 

 responding human tooth, m^, of an American 

 Indian, with which it is compared in Fig. 2, the 

 transverse diameter is 12.5 mm., the anteropos- 

 terior diameter is 11 mm. Thus the proportions 

 of the molar crown of the Hesperopitliecus type 

 are about the same as those in the Homo sapiens 

 moncjoloideus type. There is also a distant human 

 resemblance in the molar pattern of Hespero- 

 pitliecus, as very skilfully portrayed (Fig. 1)- by 

 the artist, Mrs. L. M. Sterling, to the low, basin- 

 shaped, channeled crown in certain examples of 

 Homo sapiens. But the Hesperopitheciis molar 

 cannot be said to resemble any known tj'pe of 

 liuman molar very closely. The autlior agrees 

 with Mr. Cook, with Dr. Hellman, and with Dr. 

 Gregorj', that it resembles the liuman type more 

 closely than it does any known anthropoid ape 



1 The names signify an anthropoid of the West- 

 ern World discovered by Mr. Harold .J. Cook. 



- The illustrations will be pubUshed by the 

 American Museum of Natural Historv. 



