456 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
reduction has been much less — only 7 or 8 mm. in the 
length of the molar teeth, and 10 mm. in the width of the 
ascending ramus of the jaw. If the reduction depicted 
in fig. 168 represents changes which have occurred in 
the human mandible and teeth since the beginning of 
the Pleistocene period, then we must infer that the 
structural evolution of man has taken place at a sur- 
prisingly rapid pace. 
As already said, the reconstructions of the mandible 
shown in fig. 168 were made before the actual discovery 
of the canine tooth. A situation with a certain degree 
of piquancy thus arose, for we were all well aware that 
Mr Charles Dawson was busily extending his researches 
at Piltdown, and that any day a discovery might be made 
which would settle finally which reconstruction was right 
and which was wrong. Early in August 19 13, Father P. 
Teilhard de Chardin, who shared in all the toils at 
Piltdown, discovered first the two nasal bones — the bones 
which form the bridge of the nose — and secondly a canine 
tooth, all in the same black Eoanthropic stratum and near 
the original site of discovery. Like all the fragments of 
the skull the nasal bones were human in character ; like 
the majority of the features of the mandible the canine 
tooth was of the anthropoid type. Dr Smith Wood- 
ward's reasoning led him in the right direction ; mine 
led me in the wrong.^ 
Accurate drawings of the tooth thus discovered are 
represented in fig. 169. The middle of the upper series 
(fig. 169) shows the side of the tooth which is directed 
towards the tongue, for it is the lower canine of the right 
side.^ It was also the right half of the mandible which 
was found. For comparison the right lower canine teeth 
of a young female chimpanzee (i), of a female gorilla (2), 
of a child in the "milk" stage of dentition (represented 
' See "Supplementary Note on the Discovery of a Palasolithic Human 
Skull and Mandible at Piltdown, Sussex," by Charles Dawson, Arthur 
Smith Woodward, and Grafton Elliot Smith, Quart. Jo urn. Geol. Soc, 
19 14, vol. Ixx. p. 82. '^ 
- After a minute study of the Piltdown canine, Mr Leon Williams came 
to the conclusion that it is an upper, not a lower tooth. 
