44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



I find no difficulty in attributing it to a giant gibbon " (pp. 746-747). 

 However (p. 749) regardless of " whether the Pithecanthropus 

 was a transitional form to Man, or an ape, it represents a new 

 member in the line of forms which enable us to see the entire great 

 field oi the Vertebrates as an evolutionally connected whole." 



SUBSEQUENT HISTORY 



By 1897 knowledge of the famous discovery and its discussions 

 had become generalized, without, however, an agreement being 

 reached as to their true meaning. Dubois' contributions to the subject 

 gradually ceased ; and the remains themselves became no longer 

 readily accessible; various students, including the writer (1912), 

 failed to obtain permission to see them; even the whereabouts and 

 finally the very existence of the specimens became uncertain and 

 many curious conjectures were raised as to their fate. 



The keen interest in the find had, however, by no means died out, 

 and in 1907-1908 it culminated in a new " geological and paleontolog- 

 ical " expedition to Trinil by Mme. Selenka, the energetic widow of 

 the well known Munich zoologist of the same name, and Professor 

 Max Blanckenhorn of Berlin. The valuable results of the extensive 

 two seasons' work were published in 1911.' No further remains related 

 to the " Pithecanthropus " were discovered. In another locality (near 

 Sonde, a few miles from Trinil) and under circumstances suggesting 

 a possible antiquity, the crown of a human molar was found, " by a 

 trustworthy white man." This tooth was described in the Selenka- 

 Blanckenhorn memoir by Walkhoff (pp. 214-221, pi. XXVIII), who 

 believed it possessed a number of features pointing to a considerable 

 age ; but Dubois, on seeing the specimen, pronounced it " a wholly 

 recent and white human lower jaw molar." " 



The next noteworthy point in the history of the celebrated 

 remains was the posthumous pulilication of Schwalbe's study of the 

 femur.' Schwalbe's conclusion, though old (1899), deserves to be 

 quoted in full. The results are, he says, that the bone " has nothing 

 to do with cither the Gibbon or with the remaining anthropoids, and 



' Selenka, M. Lenore, and P.lanckcnliorn, ^[ax, Die Pithecanthropus-Schicliten 

 auf Java. 25S pp., 22 pis., numerous figs., Leipzig, 191 1. 



*Z. Kgl. nicflcrl. Ges. Erdk.. Vol. 25, Afl. 6, 1908; Selenka and Blanckenhorn's 

 memoir, p. 214. 



' Schwalhc, G., Studien iibcr das Femur von Pithecanthropus crcctus Dubois. 

 Z. Morpliol. u. .'\nthrop., Vol. 21, pp. 289-360, 1921. Prepared for publication by 

 Eugen Fischer. 



