PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS, ETC. 349 



unequivocal characters. The evidence derived from this 

 source can, as far as it yet concerns man's descent, be com- 

 pressed within the bounds of a moderate article. 



2. THE BENGAWAN FIND— THE LATEST ADDITION TO 

 THE HUMAN GEOLOGICAL RECORD. 



The latest page has been opened in Java by Dr. 

 Eugene Dubois, and has yielded us a calvaria, a tooth and 

 a femur supposed to belong to an individual that flourished 

 in an early post-tertiary period. 1 In the hills near the 

 centre of the long island of Java the Bengawan takes its 

 rise, and then runs its short course northwards to the sea. 

 Some parts of the district drained by this stream have 

 yielded fossil remains of animals believed, by their finder, 

 Dr. Dubois, to belong to Pleistocene times, and while 

 extending his researches on the left bank of the Bengawan, 

 he unearthed the tooth and skull one metre apart, the femur 

 fifteen metres farther up stream, and all at the same depth 

 — one metre below the level of the bed of the Bengawan. 

 That is, practically, all he tells of the circumstances in which 

 these remains were found. The mere fact that they were 

 found in the bank of a stream — which, like all tropical 

 streams, must play great havoc with its course during the 

 rainy season — inclines us to doubt, until Dr. Dubois can in- 

 form us to the contrary, the possibility of assigning them, at 

 present, their correct geological age. For me,' the proof of 

 their antiquity lies in the peculiarity of their conformation. 



Given the roof of a cranium, sliced off at the level of 

 the supra-orbital ridges, an' upper third molar tooth of 

 large size and peculiar form, and a femur almost entire : 

 reconstruct the animal or animals to which they belonged. 

 This was the task that confronted Dr. Dubois, and the 

 result we have in a rather extensive memoir' 2 issued from 

 the Batavian press towards the close of last year. He met 



1 Cf. footnote on p. 368. 



2 Pithecanthropus Erectus. Eine Menschencehnliclie Uebergangsform 

 aus Java, Batavia, 1894, 39 pp., 4 , 2 pis. Full lists of references are 

 given. 



