17 
Society’s Transactions. After Von Wurmb had drawn up his 
description he states, in a letter dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781,* 
that the specimen was sent to Europe in brandy to be placed 
in the collection of the Prince of Orange; “unfortunately,” 
he continues, “we hear that the ship has been wrecked.” 
Von Wurmb died in the course of the year 1781, the letter 
in which this passage occurs being the last he wrote; but in 
his posthumous papers, published in the fourth part of the 
Transactions of the Batavian Society, there is a brief descrip- 
tion, with measurements, of a female Pongo four feet high. 
Did either of these original specimens, on which Von 
Wurmb’s descriptions are based, ever reach Europe? It is 
commonly supposed that they did; but FE doubt the fact. 
For, appended to the memoir “ De l’Ourang-outang,” in the 
collected edition of Camper’s works, Tome I., pp. 64-66, is a 
note by Camper himself, referring to Von Wurmb’s papers, and 
continuing thus :—“ Heretofore, this kind of ape had never 
been known in Europe. Radermacher has had the kindness 
WESLEK Se 
Fra. 7.—The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper, after Camper's 
original sketches, as reproduced by Luce. 
to send me the skullof one of these animals, which measured 
fifty-three inches, or four feet five inches, in height. I have 
* Briefe des Herrn vy. Wurmb und des H. Baron von Wollzogen. Gotha, 
1794.” 
