ESSAY-REVIEWS 



HUMAN PALEONTOLOGY, by A. G. Thacker, A.R.C.Sc. : on 

 (i) Prehistoric Times, by the late Rt. Hon. Lord Avebury. Seventh 



Edition. [Pp. 633, with 284 illustrations.] (London : Williams & 



Norgate, 1913, price 10s. 6d. net.) 

 (2) Ancient Hunters, and their Modern Representatives, by W. J. Sollas, 



F.R.S. Second Edition. [Pp. xxiv + 591, with 2 plates and 314 



text-figures.] (London: Macmillan & Co, 1915, price 15s. net.] 



The last fifteen years have seen no palaeontological dis- 

 coveries comparable in importance to the startling advance 

 in biological thought due to the rediscovery of Mendel's work 

 and the publication of De Vries' researches. Yet palaeontology 

 has made much progress, and in no branch of the science have 

 investigators been more active than in that which deals with 

 human fossils. Lord Avebury's work was republished at an 

 unfortunate time. The Piltdown discovery, one of the half- 

 dozen most important finds of fossil human remains, was not 

 made known to the world until December 191 2, and the veteran 

 scholar had no time to incorporate more than a brief reference 

 to the subject. Thus the meaning of the Sussex skull, and 

 certain other very new problems, are not discussed in Prehistoric 

 Times, although in so far as most of the recent information upon 

 the older questions is given, the publishers claim that the book 

 is up-to-date is justified. There are, however, a few survivals 

 of Nineteenth-Century mistakes. The old confusion between the 

 auroch and the bison is perpetuated, the Latin names of various 

 mammals (which it has been necessary to change owing to the 

 law of priority) have not been revised, and there is a surprising 

 error with regard to the Javan ape-man, who is described as 

 being either a large gibbon or a " very small man." The femur 

 is of course our only index to the size of the Javan creature, 

 and judging from that he was fully up to the average human 

 height. Moreover, Lord Avebury was not able to correct the 

 proofs himself, and unfortunately they were carelessly revised ; 

 but in spite of these blemishes, it is hardly necessary to say that 



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