306 FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALENSIS. 



we have not a conjecture to offer. We may remark, how- 

 ever, that the tooth is not channeled on three sides at the 

 base, as in the Entellus. Does the fossil belong to the same 

 species as the jaw discovered by Messrs. Baker and Durand, 

 or to a larger one ? 



Appended Note hy Mr. Prinsep, Ed. Journ. As. Society. — 

 We have sketched Dr. Falconer's highly curious fossU tooth 

 in position with the lower jaw of the Sumatran Orang-outang 

 from the Society's Museum (fig. 11). There is a third facet 

 of wear at the lower extremity d which, on reference, we 

 find Dr. Falconer attributes like c to attrition against 

 the first molar, being observable, he says, in many aged 

 animals. The worn surfaces c and d are uniformly pohshed, 

 and have evidently originated from attrition against a tooth ; 

 but with regard to the principal facet b, we confess we have 

 a degree of scepticism, which can only be removed by a cer- 

 tainty that the fossil had been seen extracted from the matrix. 

 In the first place, the great extent of the worn surface and 

 its perfect fiatness coidd hardly be caused by attrition against 

 the lower canine which should produce a curvature measured 

 by the length of the jaw as radius. In the next place, the 

 enamel of the tooth is less worn than the interior and softer 

 part of the fossil ; and thirdly, on examination with a mag- 

 nifier, numerous scratches are visible in divers directions : 

 all these mdicating that the facet may have been produced 

 on the fossil, by grinding it on a file or some hard fiat surface. 

 On showing the fossil to Madhusudana, the medical pandit 

 of the Hindoo College, he at once pronounced that the tooth 

 had been ground down to be used m medicine, being a sove- 

 reign sj)ecific in the native pharmacopoeia. This circumstance 

 need not necessarily affect the question, for it is probable 

 that the native druggist would commence his rubbing on the 

 natural plane, if any presented itself to his choice ; but Dr. 

 Falconer and Capt. Cautley, to whom we have returned the 

 fossil with a communication of our doubts, assure us in reply 

 that the fossil tooth was brought in along with a large col- 

 lection, so that there is every improbability of its having been 

 in possession of a native druggist. At any rate, it is not on 

 the front wear that they so much rest their argument of its 

 origm, as on the posterior abrasion which could only happen 

 in the jaw of a quadrumauous animal. In fact, they have 

 recent Quadrumana showing precisely similar wear on a small 

 scale, and no other head wiU do so. We find only one ex- 

 ception in the Society's Museum, viz. the Tapir, whose right 

 upper incisor (or non-salient canine) falling between the two 

 lower ones is worn nearly in the fashion of the fossil, but it 

 is less elongated. 



