AMERICAN ZOOLOGISTS AND EVOLUTION. 191 



Wyman ' quotes Broca as saying that the measurements of these 

 tibiae resemble the ape, and, what is more striking, in a small number 

 of instances " the bone is bent aud is strongly convex forward, and 

 its angles so rounded as to present the nearly oval section seen in the 

 apes." The occurrence of these platycnemic tibiae has been noticed 

 by several investigators. They have been obtained from the mounds 

 of Kentucky by Mr. Carr, Mr. Lyon, and Prof. Putnam. Prof. Wyman 

 found them in Florida mounds. To Mr. Henry Gillman, of Detroit, 

 science is indebted for the discovery of the flattest tibiae ever recorded, 

 exceeding even those discovered in Europe. Mr. Gillman has opened 

 a number of mounds along the Detroit and Rouge Rivers in Michigan, 

 and assiduously studied the characters of these remains, which indi- 

 cate a very ancient race of men. Many of these tibia? he has sent 

 to the Peabody Archaeological Museum at Cambridge. Associated 

 with these remarkable tibia? he found large numbers of perforated 

 humeri. 



At the Detroit meeting of the Association, Prof. W. S. Barnard 

 showed that the muscles which move the fingers and toes have been 

 developed from one common muscle, and, in studying the various de- 

 grees of specialization of the muscles which move the hand and foot 

 in the gorilla and lower apes, he finds that in the foot " man remains 

 a creature of the past not modified by that which makes him a man, 

 the brain. The hand has been modified and perfected by its services 

 to the brain." Prof. Barnard also contributed another essay, entitled 

 " Comparative Myology of Man and the Apes." From very careful 

 studies he is led to believe that the relative position of the origin of the 

 muscles is more constant than that of their insertions. In this ex- 

 amination he brings to light a muscle which Traill dissected in the 

 higher apes, and which he called the scansorius, and this was sup- 

 posed to have no representative in man. 



Traill was followed by Wyman, Owen, Wilder, and Bischoff, who, 

 in a controversy with Huxley, argued from this muscle against the 

 simian origin of man. Mr. Barnard now shows that Traill was mis- 

 taken, and that other naturalists were misled by the weight of his 

 authority. What Traill interpreted as the gluteus minimus is the 

 piriformis, and what he figured as a new muscle separating the apes 

 from man, the scansorius, is the homologue of our gluteus minimus. 



From gradually accumulating data, in regard to microcephalic 

 skulls, it would seem as if Carl Vogt were right in judging them to be 

 cases of reversion. Prof. Wyman says, in regard to a microcephalic 

 skull from Mauritius, that, " taking together the high temporal ridges, 

 the union of the temporals with the frontals, the projection of the 

 jaws, the narrow and retreating forehead, the small capacity, and the 

 form and proportions of the nasal openings, the general resemblance 

 to that of an ape is most striking, and seems to justify Vogt's expres- 

 1 " Fourth Annual Report of the Peabody Archaeological Museum." 



