ts two molar teeth, artificially filed to simulate human patterns of wear. In December, Smith Woodward published and the controversy began.
The skull fragments, although remarkably thick, could not be distinguished from those of modern humans. The  jaw, on the other hand, except for the wear of its teeth, loudly said "chimpanzee" to many experts (in fact, it once belonged to an orangutan). No one smelled fraud, but many professionals felt that parts of two creatures had been mixed together at the Piltdown site. Smith Woodward stoutly defended the integrity of his creature, arguing, with flawed logic, that the crucial role of brain power in our mastery of the earth today implies a precocious role for large brains in evolutionary history as well. A fully vaulted skull still attached to an apish jaw vindicated such a brain-centered view of human evolution.
Teilhard left England late in 1912 4 to begin his graduate studies with Marcellin Boule, the greatest physical anthropologist of France. But in August 1913, he was back in England for a retreat at Ore Place. He also spent several days prospecting with Dawson and on August 30 made a major discovery himself-a canine tooth of the lower jaw, apish in appearance but worn in a human fashion. Smith Woodward continued his series of publications on the new material, but critics persisted in their belief that Piltdown man represented two animals improperly united.
The impasse broke in Smith Woodward's favor in 1915. Dawson had been prospecting at another site, two miles from Piltdown, for several years. He probably took Teilhard there in 1913; we know that he searched the area several times with Smith Woodward in 1914. Then, in January 1915, he wrote to Smith Woodward. The second site, later called Piltdown 2, had yielded its reward-"I believe we are in luck again. I have got a fragment of the left side [it was actually the right] of a frontal bone with a portion of the orbit and root of nose.-In July of the same year, he announced the discovery of a lower molar, again, apish 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 