i84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



was a painting by Gabriel Max, of Municli, entitled Pithecan- 

 thropus europaeus alalus. This picture, which formed one of 

 the chief attractions of the International Art Exhibition in the 

 Crystal Palace at Munich, represents the " missing link " and his 

 family, or the primitive semihuman European, as he may have 

 " lived and loved " in the Pliocene period of the Tertiary epoch. 



In this connection we may premise that Prof. Gabriel Max is 

 not only a genial artist endowed with a rare power of portraying 

 strong passions and intense emotions of the soul joy, sorrow, 

 enthusiasm, the ecstasy of the saint and the heroic resignation of 

 the martyr, especially as reflected in the features of women but 

 also an amateur in anthropology and comparative anatomy. 

 Among his recent works are several remarkable studies of apes, 

 such as In Bad Humor (an angry simian mother correcting her 

 child by pulling its ear). Three Sages (a trio of monkeys sitting 

 before an open book), and especially the semi-satirical group of 

 anthropoids as art critics now in the New Pinakothek at Munich. 



Unlike these paintings, which are the result of long and care- 

 ful observation of living models, the representation of the Pithe- 

 canthropus is a fancy sketch based upon scientific deductions 

 from the theory of evolution. The scene lies in the primeval 

 forest, where the female of the pithecoid progenitors of mankind 

 is seated at the foot of a tree, nursing her infant. The hands 

 show a marked advance toward humanity in their differentiation 

 from the feet. Of existing apes the gorilla comes nearest to man 

 in this respect, and is superior to all other quadrumanes in the 

 power of standing erect and walking on its hind feet, but as a 

 rule it goes on all fours. The Pithecanthropus, however, no 

 longer creeps and grovels on the ground, but assumes with ease 

 an upriglit posture, and, in the words of Racine, " eleve un front 

 noble et regards les cieux." Not only does this creature lift its 

 brow and look at the sky, but, what is perhaps of still greater 

 importance, he puts his foot down like a man, and, if he should 

 chance to leave any "footprints on the sands of time," they 

 would preserve distinct traces of five toes, whereas in the impres- 

 sions made by the foot of the gorilla we can discover only marks 

 of the ball of the foot and slight indications of the great toe. 

 The same process of development is also perceptible in the forma- 

 tion of the limbs and in the lines of the face. The male, as he 

 stands near the -fallen trunk of a tree, has quite straight legs 

 rather too straight, indeed, for Homo primigenius, who was un- 

 doubtedly knock-kneed and the calves are somewhat more fully 

 developed than we should expect to find them in this early stage 

 of transition from ape to man. The hair on the body has become 

 thinner and that of the head has grown longer and more luxuri- 

 ant, especially in the female. The skull, too, evidently covers a 



