Prince of Orange; "unfortunately," he continues, "we hear that the ship
has been wrecked." Von Wurmb died in the course of the year 1781, the
letter in which this passage occurs being the last he wrote; but in his
posthumous papers, published in the fourth part of the Transactions of
the Batavian Society, there is a brief description, with measurements,
of a female Pongo four feet high.

[footnote] "Briefe des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von
Wollzogen. Gotha, 1794."

Did either of these original specimens, on which Von Wurmb's
descriptions are based, ever reach Europe? It is commonly supposed
that they did; but I doubt the fact. For, appended to the memoir 'De
l'Ourang-outang,' in the collected edition of Camper's works, tome i.,
pp. 64-66, is a note by Camper himself, referring to Von Wurmb's
papers, and continuing thus:--"Heretofore, this kind of ape had never
been known in Europe. Radermacher has had the kindness to send me the
skull of one of these animals, which measured fifty-three inches, or
four feet five inches, in height. I have sent some sketches of it to M.
Soemmering at Mayence, which are better calculated, however, to give an
idea of the form than of the real size of the parts."

These sketches have been reproduced by Fischer and by Lucae, and bear
date 1783, Soemmering having received them in 1784. Had either of Von
Wurmb's specimens reached Holland, they would hardly have been unknown
at this time to Camper, who, however, goes on to say--"It appears that
since this, some more of these monsters have been captured, for an
entire skeleton, very badly set up, which had been sent to the Museum of
the Prince of Orange, and which I saw only on the 27th of June, 1784,
was more than four feet high. I examined this skeleton again on the