56 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 83 



The brain form of the " Pithecanthropus," which, because of the 

 fining of the skull cavity with a hard mass, did not become observable 

 until three years ago, is exceedingly important (pi. 7). Its size and 

 form and gyration appear to remove it at once from the brains of all 

 known apes and bring it correspondingly closer to that of man. It is 

 inconsistent with and morphologically superior to its own skull. The 

 brain cavity measured in capacity at least 900 cc. and this for a female. 

 A corresponding male brain cavity would measure somewhere about 

 1,100 cc. These dimensions connect already with the human. In the 

 writer's collections, in the U. S. National Museum, there are 32 

 American Indian skulls, of small statured but otherwise apparently 

 normal individuals, ranging in capacity from 910 to 1,020 cc. In the 

 hugest gorilla this capacity does not exceed, so far as known, and 

 mostly is well below, 600 cc. ; and in the chimpanzee or orang it never 

 reaches even this size. The frontal lobes of the Java specimen, while 

 still low, approach in their form the human, lacking the pointed, 

 keel-shaped appearance they have in all the apes ; and the rest of 

 the brain was of a higher type than that of the apes. Had this form 

 advanced in its brain size and form by again as much as it already 

 stood above that of the known apes, it would be wholly impossible 

 to exclude it from the human category, unless it was done by the 

 establishment of a separate genus of creatures, equivalent in brain 

 mass and brain differentiation to Homo. 



With all this it could not be legitimate to assert that the Pithec- 

 anthropus was either a form of early man or one that eventually 

 evolved into man. Either of these conclusions would demand decisive 

 supporting material, which does not exist. The most that appears 

 justifiable, until further and conclusive evidence appears, is to regard 

 the Pithecanthropus, as represented by the skullcap, to have been a 

 high Primate of as yet uncertain ancestry and no known progeny, 

 far advanced in what may be termed a humanoid direction. 



As to the teeth and femur, they must remain more or less proble- 

 matical until further discoveries. They are not absolutely needed 

 by the Pithecanthropus for his establishment, though they, particu- 

 larly the femur, would, if definitely identified with the skullcap, 

 enlighten us on points of importance. The two molars, with much 

 probability, belong to the skull ; the premolar, the femur and especially 

 the lower jaw, are much more doubtful. There is some legitimate 

 doubt whether individually or collectively they belong even to the 

 same form of beings. But if not, then the problem, instead of being 

 simplified, becomes much more complex, for we are then confronted 

 with the question as to what were the additional creatures repre- 

 sented by these specimens. 



