156 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Jan., 



shell or other hard body," the theory being, according to Darwin, 

 that a small variation arising in the dentition through some nutritive 

 change, and being of advantage in the struggle for life, would be 

 intensified in successive generations until, in the end, a type of tooth 

 would be evolved such as is presented in the case of the wombat, 

 Chiromys, and Rodentia living in far distant parts of the world. 



Finally, in the judgment of the writer, man cannot have descended 

 from either the gorilla, chimpanzee, the orang or gibbon, since, apart 

 from the structural difference between any one of them and man being 

 too great to warrant such an hypothesis, the three great anthropoid 

 apes are obviously degenerates leading to no higher form of life, but 

 ra]3idly dying out, as shown by the fact that these apes resemble man 

 much more when Yevj young than when adult. While it is true that 

 the gap between man and the gibbon is greater than between man 

 and the remaining apes, nevertheless, as Pithecanthropus erectus, 

 whatever its real nature may be, is something more than a gibbon, and 

 yet something less than a man — more ape-like than any man, and more 

 man-like than any ape ^^ — by a method of exclusion the conclusion is 

 reached that the man and gibbon are related in some way. 



It must iDe admitted, nevertheless, that the question of the exact 

 origin of man is largely as yet one of speculation, and that future re- 

 searches may show that our ancestors may have been extinct Catar- 

 rhine or Platyrrhine monkeys or even lemurs. 



-' E. Dubois, Pithecanthropus Erectus, 1894. 

 O. C. Marsh, On the Pithecanthropus, etc., 1895. 



ScHWALBE, Studien iiber Pithecanthropus erectus, Zeits. fiir Morph. v. 

 Anthr., 1899, S. 16. 



