[776] Discours sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe, p. 171.
Fossil Ape of France.—But the remains of this order have at length been discovered in the most ancient of the tertiary deposits, and under circumstances which admit of no doubt as to the antiquity of the fossils or the strata in which they were imbedded; and almost at the same time in France and in the Sub-Himalayas; and very recently in the Brazils and in England. The first European specimen was discovered at Sansan, near Auch, about forty miles west of Toulouse, by M. Lartet, with remains of the Rhinoceros, Deer, Antelope, Palæotherium, &c. It consists of the lower jaw, almost complete, with all the teeth, of an adult animal, of an extinct species, related to the long-limbed and tailed monkey, called Semnopithecus, of which the Negro Monkey is an example. A fragment of another jaw has been found in the same locality.
Fossil Monkey of the Sub-Himalayas.—In the inexhaustible mine of fossil bones, discovered by British Officers in India, the upper jaw of an Ape was found by Messrs. Baker and Durand, and fragments of other jaws and some bones were subsequently collected by Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley. These relics conjointly established the existence of a gigantic quadrumanous animal in the groves of India at the Eocene epoch, when the gigantic Tortoise, the lofty Sivatherium, and the colossal Mastodon tenanted the plains, and Hippopotami frequented the marshes and rivers. This fossil Ape also is related to the Semnopithecus.
Fossil Monkey of South America.—Dr. Lund, the eminent Danish naturalist, to whose indefatigable researches, and successful determination of the colossal Edentata, we have previously alluded, has discovered the bones of a gigantic Ape, four feet in height, related to the Capuchin Monkey, in the ossiferous breccia of the caves of Brazil.
British Fossil Monkeys, Ly. p. 202.—The first fossil relic of a quadrumanous animal from the British strata was obtained in 1839, from a bed of Eocene sand, at Kyson, a few miles east of Woodbridge, in Suffolk, by W. Colchester, Esq. The first specimen found consisted of a small fragment of the right side of the lower jaw, with the last molar tooth entire in its socket; another relic is the crown of one fang of the first molar tooth, of the same species. These relics have been referred to an extinct species of Monkey, related to the Macacus, which has been named Macacus eocænus, in allusion to the geological age of the stratum in which the remains were discovered.[777] In this Eocene sand have also been discovered the remains of a Bat (p. 813), and of a Marsupial (Didelphys, p. 805), and numerous fish-teeth (Lamna, p. 594); whilst in the clay overlying this sand were found the vertebra of a Serpent (Palæophis, p. 738) and several teeth of a Pachyderm (Hyracotherium, p. 791). Prof. Owen in the Hist. Brit. Foss. Mam. p. xlvi. figures and briefly notices the relics of another species of Macacus, from the newer pliocene, or pleistocene, brick earth at Grays, Essex.
[777] Owen, British Fossil Mammalia, p. 1, figs. 1, 3.
Fossil Human Bones.—In the Swabian Alps, human teeth and several perfect human skulls are said to have been found in deposits in which elephantine remains also occur. This subject was brought before the meeting of the German Association for the Advancement of Science at Tubingen, by Fraas and Jäger, and, if correctly reported, naturally leads to the conclusion that human beings were contemporaneous with the extinct elephants and some of the other large pachydermata in the regions referred to.
ON COLLECTING FOSSIL MAMMALIA.
On Collecting and Developing the Fossil Remains of Mammalia.—But few directions for the developing and repairing of the fossil remains of mammalia will be required in this place, the suggestions already offered, and particularly those in vol. i. pp. 45-49, embracing full instructions on this head.[778] On the method recommended in p. 46, for strengthening the friable bones of the large mammalia, I may observe, that the drying-oil is prepared by boiling litharge in oil, in the proportion of one ounce of the litharge to a pint of oil.
[778] Cement.—The following formula was given me by an eminent collector and developer of fossils:—