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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Only two or three steps of the man are dis- 

 tinct; then the confusion that appears to 

 mark a struggle, and then the impression 

 where a great body has fallen. After the 

 struggle the great crane has waded about 

 over the spot ; its tracks winding in and out 

 as if it had been avoiding w ith care the deep 

 impressions made by the combatants, till at 

 last, stumbling into one, it rises in startled 

 fright. Farther to the north are many hu- 

 man tracks, all telling different stories of 

 the track-makers." The question whether 

 the foot-prints are really those of men is 

 under discussion. Their size and the width 

 of the straddle are against them. Professor 

 Harkness suggests, however, that the sandal 

 is not necessarily much larger than would 

 be made to protect the side, as well as the 

 heel and toe, of a foot twelve or thirteen 

 inches long ; and persons laboring in heavy 

 mud would tend to make a wide straddle. 

 The stride corresponds well with that of a 

 man. Professor Joseph Le Conte, who also 

 has examined the tracks, has expressed the 

 opinion to the Academy that " no one who 

 studies them can fail to observe their re- 

 markable general resemblance to human 

 tracks." lie thought they might have been 

 made by a human foot inclosed in a raw- 

 hide sandal much larger, externally, than 

 the foot. He knew of no animal but a bi- 

 ped that could make such tracks ; and this 

 was possible for a man with sandals on to 

 do. As a judicial mind, he desired to hold 

 his final scientifically expressed opinion in 

 reserve, awaiting further testimony. Sev- 

 eral fossils have been found in the forma- 

 tion tusks and teeth of elephants and 

 horses, vegetable remains, and the fresh- 

 water shells anadonta and physa. It is 

 difficult to determine the exact age of the 

 strata, but they are generally agreed to be 

 cither Quaternary or Pliocene. 



The Infant Giant Jaw-Bone of Stram- 

 bcrg. The Congress of Austrian Archaeolo- 

 gists, recently in session at Salzburg, was 

 the scene of an interesting discussion of 

 the human jaw-bone, m which the propor- 

 tions of a giant were found associated with 

 the teeth of a child, which was dug out, at 

 Stramberg, in Moravia, from under a for- 

 mation containing bones of the reindeer, 

 snow-owl, cave-bear, and other Arctic ani- 



mals. Professor Schaffhausen maintained 

 that the jaw was one of a child, of between 

 eight and nine years old, in which the 

 change of teeth was going on. The incisors 

 had already changed, and an eye-tooth and 

 the premolars were developing in the jaw, 

 and would have appeared after the usual 

 time. The incisors showed considerable use. 

 The height and thickness of the jaw and the 

 size of the teeth reached the dimensions 

 of those of a full-grown man of our time, 

 and even surpassed them in some respects. 

 The forward part of the jaw retreated so 

 much as to obliterate the chin. These 

 marks, similar to those that are observed 

 in a still higher degree in other diluvial 

 jaws, show that we have to deal with a man 

 of very low organization. Professor Schaff- 

 hausen rejected the idea that the develop- 

 ment of the teeth had been prevented by a 

 pathological cause. Virchow opposed both 

 the view that the jaw was like that of an 

 ape and the one that it was a child's. The 

 case was a rare instance of heterotopy in 

 a man of gigantic size. The jaw was sub- 

 mitted to a committee, who subjected it to 

 a careful examination and comparison. No 

 one's views were changed, but the commit- 

 tee reported that the proportions of the teeth 

 considerably exceeded those of a child's 

 teeth, and reached those that are attained 

 only in a full-grown man ; it discovered 

 nothing ape-like in the chin, but found, on 

 measuring it, that, instead of retreating as 

 it appeared to do, its line was perpendicular 

 to the upper surface of the incisors, taken 

 as a horizon. By carefully cutting away 

 the plaster that held the left larger incisor 

 in the preparation, an extraordinarily thick 

 and plump root, rounded below, and quite 

 different in its proportions from the normal, 

 was brought to view ; and the committee 

 advised that the preparation of the speci- 

 men made by Professor Virchow be revised, 

 so that the jaw could be subjected to a 

 more thorough examination. 



A Lignified Snake. Naturalists are in- 

 debted to Senhor Lopez Netto, Brazilian 

 Minister to the United States, for introduc- 

 ing to their attention a specimen of a phe- 

 nomenon which, although it had been re- 

 garded as possible, had never before been 

 observed that of an animal turned into 



