sh in  appearance but worn in a human fashion. The bones of a human and an ape might wash into the same gravel pit once, but the second, identical association of vaulted skull and apish jaw surely proved the integrity of a single bearer, despite the apparent anatomical incongruity. H. F. Osborn, America's leading paleontologist and critic of the first Piltdown find, announced a conversion in his usual grandiloquent fashion. Even Teilhard's teacher Marcellin Boule, leader of the doubters, grumbled that the new finds had tipped the balance, albeit slightly, in Smith Woodward's favor. Dawson did not live to enjoy his triumph, for he died in 1916. Smith Woodward stoutly supported Piltdown for the rest of his long life, devoting his last book (The Earliest Englishman, 1948) to its defense. He died, mercifully, before his bubble burst.
Meanwhile, Teilhard pursued his calling with mounting fame, frustration, and exhilaration. He served with distinction as a stretcher bearer in World War I and then became professor of geology at the Institut Catholique of Paris. But his unorthodox (although always pious) thinking soon led him into irrevocable conflict with ecclesiastical authority. Ordered to abandon his teaching post and to leave France, Teilhard departed for China in 1926. There he remained for most of his life, pursuing distinguished research in geology and paleontology and writing the philosophical treatises on cosmic history and the reconciliation of science with religion that later made him so famous. (They all remained unpublished, by ecclesiastical fiat, until his death.) Teilhard died in 1955, but his passing only marked the beginning of his meteoric rise to fame. His treatises, long suppressed, were published and quickly translated into all major languages. The Phenomenon of Man became a best seller throughout the world. Harvard's Widener Library now houses an entire tier of books devoted to Teilhard's writing and thinking. Two journals that were established to discuss his ideas still flourish.
Of the original trio-Dawson, Teilhard, and Smith Woodward-only Teilhard was still living when Kenneth  Oakley, J. S. Weiner, and W. E. le Gros Clark proved that the Piltdown bones had been chemically stained to mimic great age, the teeth artificially filed to simulate human wear, the associated mammal remains all brought in from elsewhere, and the flint "implements" recently carved. The critics had been right all along, more right than they had dared to imagine. The skull bones did belong to a modern human, the jaw to an orangutan. As the shock of revelation gave way to the fascination of whodunit, suspicion quickly passed from two members of the trio. Smith Woodward had been too dedicated and too gullible; moreover, he knew nothing of the site before Dawson brought him the original bones in 1912. (I have no doubt whatsoever of Smith Woodward's total innocence.) Teilhard was too famous and too present for any but the most discreet probing. He was dismissed as a native young student who, forty years before, had been duped and used by the crafty Dawson. Dawson acting alone became the official theory; professional science was embarrassed, but absolved.
I was just the right age for primal fascination-twelve years old-and a budding paleontologist when news of the fraud appeared on page one of the New York Times one morning at breakfast. My interest has never abated, and 1 have, over the years, asked many senior paleontologists about Piltdown. I have also remarked, both with amusement and wonder, that very few believed the official tale of Dawson acting alone. I noted, in particular, that several of the men I most admire suspected Teilhard, not so much on the basis of hard evidence (for their suspicions rested on what I regard as a weak point among the arguments), but from an intuitive feeling about this man whom they knew well, loved, and respected, but who seemed to hide passion, mystery, and good humor behind a garb of piety. A. S. Romer and Bryan Patterson, two of America's leading vertebrate paleontologists and my former colleagu