286 



DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



in which the teeth are socketed they must be big enough 

 to occupy a length of two inches and two-fifths (con- 

 sult Fig. 2 5 and its explanation). Dr. Smith Wood- 

 ward did not hesitate, in view of the shape of the jaw 

 so closely like that of a chimpanzee, to postulate the 



7— B-: 



Fig. 25. — The Piltdown Jaw (shaded) and the Heidelberg Jaw (outline only) 

 super-imposed and compared by placing the iirst and second molar teeth 

 (l and 2) of the two specimens in exact coincidence on the horizontal 

 line A, B. The linear dimensions of the drawings are reduced to two- 

 thirds of those of the specimens. It is obvious that when the front bony 

 part of the Piltdown jaw is completed with an outline like that of the 

 Heidelberg and Neander jaws, as shown by the dotted line m, the space 

 between its molars and the sockets of its front teeth cannot be filled by 

 teeth of the normal human dimensions, as it is in the Heidelberg jaw. 

 As the figure shows, they would stop short half an inch from the front of 

 the jaw. Hence Dr. Smith Woodward inferred that larger teeth like 

 those of a chimpanzee were present in this region in the Piltdown jaw 

 (Eoanthropus). 



former existence in it of big front teeth — canines and 

 incisors — like those of a chimpanzee, and unlike those 

 of man, although there was no trace of them left in the 

 specimen. He restored the jaw, giving it very much the 

 shape and the teeth of a chimpanzee's jaw (Fig. 23, B). 

 That this was a correct interpretation was proved a year 



