"MISSING LINKS "—MILLER 441 



the opinion of a third authority who has studied the material at first 

 hand. Doctor Hrdlicka, whose experience in such matters is second 

 to that of no living man, tells us (1922, p. 346) that — 



The additional molar tooth of the Piltdowu remains is iu every respect so 

 much like the first molar of the Piltdowu jaw that its procedure from the 

 same jaws seems certain, and it would seem probable that the account of its 

 having been discovered at a considerable distance away might be mistaken. 

 The tooth agrees with those of the jaw perfectly not only in dimensions and 

 every morphological character, but also in the degree and kind of wear. A 

 duplication of all this in two distinct individuals would be almost impossible. 



Doctor Hrdlicka's suggestion that there may be some mistake in 

 the published history of this tooth has met with no response. In 

 thinking about it we must remember that Dawson personally de- 

 scribed the circumstances of both of the earlier finds, but that the last 

 set of discoveries was announced after his death and unaccompanied 

 by any direct word from him. 



Deliberate malice could hardly have been more successful than the 

 hazards of deposition and recovery in so breaking the Piltdown 

 fossils and losing the most essential parts of the original skull as 

 to allow free scope to individual judgment in fitting the pieces to- 

 gether. This is particularly obvious when we look at the attempts 

 to reconstruct the brain case. The four pieces of the original cranium 

 lack some of the most important areas of contact with each other. 

 Hence it has been possible for each student to widen or narrow 

 the intervening areas according to his personal interpretation of the 

 probabilities, and so to produce brain cases of narrower or broader 

 form and of greater or less capacity. The resulting variations have 

 been exhaustively discussed by Sir Arthur Keith in the second 

 volume of his Antiquity of Man (new edition, 1925, pp. ol4^Q02). 

 According to the different reconstructions the form of the cranium 

 may be completely human in striking contrast to the apelike jaw, 

 or it may have partially simian features which cause this contrast 

 to become less; its height may vary more than an inch, and the 

 capacity of its brain cavity may range from 1,070 to 1,500 cubic 

 centimeters. 



SUMMARY OF OPINIONS ABOUT THE PILTDOWN MAN 



{Eoanthropus) 



There is only one point on which all authors agree — namely, that 

 the fragments of the brain case and the nearly complete nasal bones 

 pertain to a man. In striking contrast we find that there are not less 

 than 20 points of disagreement. 



