312 



FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALENSIS. 



In explanation of tlie interval which, elapsed between the 

 date of communication by the authors and the date when 

 the memoir was read to the Geological Society, it is to be 

 remembered that the now quick means of transmission to 

 and from India, by the overland route, did not at the time 

 exist, and that the memoir and the objects were forwarded 

 by the only channel then open, being the long voyage round 

 the Cape. 



Assuming the dates set forth to be authentic — and about 

 this it is believed there can be n^) question — iudubitable 

 evidence is borne on two distinct publications of the Geolo- 

 gical Society, that Captain Cautley and myself had established 

 the existence of a fossil quadrumanous species in the strata of 

 the Sewalik hills, upon materials discovered, identified, and 

 described by ourselves, at least as far back as the 18th Nov., 

 1836. In fact, the specimen which belonged to my collection 

 was identified by me in the shape in which it came before 

 the Society, in the spring of 1836 ; but being unwilling to 

 rest so important an announcement upon other materials 

 than the skull or teeth. Dr. Eoyle, to whom the discovery 

 was communicated, was requested to withhold it from pub- 

 lication. The fossil astragalus now before the meeting was, 

 I believe, the first quadrumanous fossil remain determined 

 by the eye of science. In afiirming this, I do not mean to 

 prefer any claim anterior to November, 1836 ; but this strong 

 conviction in my mind will explain to the Society why I 

 should not feel disposed tamely to brook the uijustice, that 

 the unreliable record of history should put me a full year 

 back in the order of discovery. 



The next incident of the case is an important paper by 

 Captains Baker and Durand, on fossil quadrumanous remains 

 from the Sewalik hOls, which appeared in the number /or the 

 month of November, 1836, of the ' Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal.' There is no record borne on the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Asiatic Society when the memoir was com- 

 municated or received, nor is any date borne on the memoir 

 itself. But it is manifest that the number of the journal in 

 question was not published, or even printed, until after the 7th 

 December, 1836, since it contains the record of the Pro- 



and was thoroughly convinced of its 

 quadrumanous nature, although with 

 his characteristic caution he waited for 

 further evidence before making the dis- 

 covery public. The credit of the first 

 discovery of fossil Quadrumana has 

 generally been awarded to French 

 naturalists (see Supplementary Notes 

 to Dr. Buckland's BridgewaterTreatise) ; 



but the date of Falconer's first paper 

 was two months antecedent to the pre- 

 sentation, on the 16th January 1837, to 

 the French Academy of Sciences of a 

 Memoir by M. Lartet, respecting the 

 discovery of the lower jaw of an ape, in 

 the tertiary freshwater formation of 

 Simorre, in the south of France. — [Ed.] 



