i8 9 5. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 79 



Mr. Mercer is carrying out the excavations with great care, and 

 it is to be hoped that a valuable addition to our knowledge of the cave 

 fauna of North America, at present very imperfect, may result. 



The Javanese Skeleton. 

 Recently there has appeared a quarto of 39 pages with two 

 plates published in Batavia and written by E. Dubois. It is entitled 

 "Pithecanthropus erectus, eine Menschenaenliche Uebergangsform aus 

 Java," and, not unnaturally, the title raised hopes that the great gap 

 between the Anthropoid Apes and Man had been bridged over at 

 least partially, and that the long-sought " Missing Link," so dear to 

 popular imagination, had at last been found. One of our corres- 

 pondents, of some authority in these matters, considers that the facts 

 brought forward appear capable of a different interpretation from that 

 put upon them by the author. The specimens described were 

 obtained from a bed of andesitic ash in the neighbourhood of Trinil, 

 on the river Bengawan in Java, and consist of the upper portion of a 

 skull, a molar tooth, and a left femur, which are regarded as having 

 belonged to a single individual. The femur was found some fifteen 

 metres from the other remains, so that its association with them, 

 though highly probable, is not certain. This bone is certainly 

 human, for it agrees in all important respects with the femur of a 

 man of average height. The most significant point about it 

 is that it is diseased, a considerable irregular growth of bone 

 having taken place on the inner side, a short distance below 

 the head. The skull, of which only the upper and hinder 

 portion is preserved, is described as dolichocephalic, and as 

 being distinguished from the skull of the Anthropoid Apes by its 

 larger size and more arched forehead. Its length is 18*5 cm., and the 

 capacity of the brain case is calculated to have been 1,000 cubic cm., 

 but the data for this latter measurement are insufficient owing to the 

 complete absence of the whole of the lower portion. If, however, we 

 suppose the cranium to have had approximately the cubic contents 

 given, it would be in this respect about two-thirds the size of an 

 average human cranium and about twice that of the skull of a middle- 

 sized gorilla. The sutures are all closed and there are no crests for 

 the insertion of muscles. Examination of the photographs of this 

 specimen shows that the whole surface of the bone is rough, being 

 covered with irregular pits, a condition indicating that, like the femur, 

 it was diseased. It seems, therefore, most probable that the skull 

 owes its peculiar form to the premature closing of the sutures, and 

 that it belonged to a microcephalic human being. It may be 

 remembered that the Neanderthal skull, to which great impor- 

 tance was attached at the time of its discovery, has been held by 

 Meyer and Virchow to be pathological. Although Java is, perhaps, 

 a not unlikely place to find the remains of an immediate ancestor 

 of man, that discovery is yet to be made. 



