Lectures on man : his place in creation, and in the history of the earth / by Carl Vogt ; edited by James Hunt.
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on man : his place in creation, and in the history of the earth / by Carl Vogt ; edited by James Hunt. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![with those extreme forms whicli we acknowledge as indepen- dent species. I hasten to another example^ which concerns us more par- ti culai]y. Cuvier never had an opportunity of seeing a fossil monkey; at that time there had not been a fragment of one found. Even on theoretical grounds, Cuvier contested the existence of fossil monkeys. At present/' says Albert Gaudry, we knowj besides those found in Greece, ten other species : two from South America, three from Asia, five from Europe (where at present no monkeys exist). All these species have been determined from very imperfect remains, the bones being very rare. In Greece the fossil monkeys are more abundant. The excavations I was commissioned to make by the Academy pro- duced twenty skulls of these animals, several jaws and bones of different parts of the body, so that I was enabled to compose a drawing of the whole skeleton. After quoting the remarks of A. Wagner, the first discoverer, and those of Lartet and Beyrich on the fossil monkey, which Wagner considered as an intermediate form between Semnopithecus and Hylohates, he continues : My last investigations had a remarkable result; they prove that the hmbs of the Greek monkey differ greatly from those of the 8em,nopithec'US. The Greek monkey (called Mesopithecus) resembles in its skull the Semnopithecus, but in its limbs the Macacus. This is a perfectly transitional type, which connects two genera perfectly distinct in the present creation. When we had before us, not merely a fragment of a jaw (as is the case of most fossil mammals registered in the catalogues), but perfect skulls, we were apt to believe the Greek monkey a Semnojyithecus. This was an error. Had we, on the contrary, had before us not a single bone but all the bones of the limbs, we might have assigned them to the Macacus; this also would have been an error. I repeat with Gaudry : Is this not a perfect transition form between two distinct genera, the head a Semnojnthccus, the body a Macaciis ? We know not whether this new species, which in Greece abounded in the tertiary period, was developed](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21923267_0480.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
