QUADEUMANA. 309 



streats on tlie surface were probably caused by rubbing on 

 a table in an attempt to remove a slight portion of the matrix, 

 which stUl adheres to the middle of the disc ; that in the 

 neisrhbourhood of the Sewalik hills such fossil bones and 

 teeth have no reputation either as medicines or charms, for 

 amongst the enormous collections of bones and teeth that we 

 have made in the tract we have not met with a single in- 

 stance of a specimen having been ground down, or manipu- 

 lated in any way for a charm or medicine ; and that, although 

 we did not see the specimen exhumed, nor do we even know 

 the exact spot from which it came, yet we have no reason to 

 suspect that it was ever in any other hands till got by our 

 collectors. It was brought in mixed up in a large collection 

 of other fossil bones. 



If our inference be correct, it proves the existence of fossil 

 Quadrumana in the Sewalik hills as large as the gigantic 

 Orang-outang of Sumatra, described by Dr. Clarke Abel. The 

 evidence usually supplied by organic remains is conclusive, 

 from these remains being either forms of structure, such as 

 bones, or casts of forms, such as coprolites, or the prints of 

 birds' feet. In this case it is neither, but a secondary result 

 or alteration of a form of structure, which generally proves 

 nothing more than the age of an animal. But in the fossil 

 it ajopears to us to be sufficiently good to be conclusive. 



The inference is of considerable geological interest, and we 

 hope, by sending the specimen to the Geological Society, that 

 it may either be confirmed or refuted. 



V. — Note on a Correction of Published Statements 



RESPECTING FoSSIL QuADRUMANA.^ * 



BY H. FALCONER, M.D., F.R.S., F.G S. 



Of the sciences which unite to build up the superstructure 

 of geology there is none more rapid in its progress, or which 

 contributes more to the enlargement of the pile, than Palaeon- 

 tology. Year after year brings forth with unerring certainty 

 its complement of extinct forms, new to the system, or extends 

 the area of what was but partially known before ; while, at 

 irregular intervals facts of such importance spring unex- 

 pectedly to light, that the science makes a bound in advance, 

 and we are carried irresistibly onward hj the impulse. Too 

 often in such cases, elated by the result and fascinated by 

 the prospects opened before us, we neglect to apply to the 



' The paper of which this is a portion ] years before the author's death, but was 

 was written in 1862, less than three | never published. — [Ed.] 



