i86o-6i M. DU CHAILLU 115 



lowing acknowledgment, dated New Broad Street, 

 March 1 : — 



' What thanks do I not owe you for so kindly 

 sending me that marvellous book ? If anything 

 were wanting to place Hunter in the highest po- 

 sition of human intellect, and as the rarest com- 

 bination of genius and practical observation, this 

 would do it. I never read so full a. book. I sat 

 an hour with Sir Benjamin Brodie the other day, 

 and when I went in I found his secretary reading 

 this book to him. He asked if I had seen this new 

 book of Hunter's, and said with great emphasis, 

 " It is a marvellous book." He seems more struck 

 with it than I ever saw him with anything before. 

 Your arranging and publishing it has conferred 

 a great benefit on the scientific public, whilst it 

 has done justice at last to that great man.' 



There appeared an amusing cartoon in - Punch ' 

 the last week in January, in which Owen is threat- 

 ened with being skinned by the South American 

 States for giving it as his opinion that Adam and 

 Eve were coloured people. 



In February he met the African traveller 

 M. Du Chaillu for the first time, and on the 25th 

 attended his lecture on gorillas at the Great Room 

 of the Royal Society, at which lecture Owen 

 made some prefatory remarks on the structure of 

 these creatures. Amongst those present was 

 Mr. Gladstone, and ' when the lecture was over,' 

 the Professor writes, ' and Mr. Gladstone had 



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