MAMMALIA. 6 



The Palaeontological history of Man, before it passes over to 

 Arclijeology, is very brief. His creation must have been extremely 

 modern, for his skeleton, more likely to become imbedded in lacus- 

 trine or submarine deposits than that of any other terrestrial ver- 

 tebrate, is found only, and that rarely, in the most recent formations, 

 in which nearly all the other fossil forms are referable to living 

 species. Human implements in great number and variety are found 

 in the "river drift" of the Post-Pliocene in all the northern conti- 

 nents. The oldest human bones, of undisputed age and character, 

 have been found in " bone-caves." 



No. 1. [1]* Homo sapiens. 



Skull (cast), discovered in 1857, in a 

 limestone cave in Neanderthal, near 

 Diisseldorf. This is tlie most famous 

 of liuman relics, and probably no single 

 fossil has created such a sensation in 

 the scientific world. Over this cranium 

 the anthropologists of Germany, France 

 and England have waged a fierce debate. It is of unusual size and thickness, 

 the forehead is very low and narrow, the brain-case being flattened to a degree 

 unknown before, and the projection of the superorbital ridges (a character 

 hitherto supposed to be peculiar to the highest apes) is enormously great. It 

 is certainly the most ape-like of human skulls, and, in the language of the 

 Westminster Review, it is "the ruin of a solitary arcli in an enormous bridge 

 which time has destroyed, and which may have connected tlie highest of 

 animals with the lowest of men." Yet in capacity it is not inferior to the 

 Negro, and it has no signs of the interparietal crest of the Gorilla. Professor 

 King contends that it is specifically distinct from man, and lived in the last 

 division of the glacial epoch ; Professor Mayer says that it stood on the 

 shoulders of a rickety Mongolian Cossack; while the conclusion of Huxley is 

 that it belongs to a period antecedent to the time of the Celts in Germany, and 

 was in all probability derived from one of the wild races of Northwestern 

 Europe. The original specimen is now in the possession of Dr. Fuhlrott, of 

 Elberfield, Rhenish Prussia. Size, 8x6. 



No. 2. [3] Homo sapiens. 



Skull (cast), discovered in 1834 in the Engis cavern, near Liege, on the left 

 bank of the Meuse. It exiiibits the frontal, parietal and occipital regions, as 

 far as the middle of the foramen, and a part of the right temporal bone. It 

 was found in bone breccia, associated with the bones of extinct animals, and 

 is of undoubted antiquity. It, however, approaches very near to the Caucasian 

 type, while the Neanderthal skull, though having no such decided claims to 

 antiquity, departs widely from the normal standard of the human race — the 

 cerebral development falling as far below that of the Australian type as the 

 latter is below the Engis. Of this skull Huxley says, " It is in fact a fair, 

 average human skull, which might liave belonged to a pliilosopher, or miglit 

 have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage." The original is now in 

 the museum of the University of Liege. Size, 8 x 5. 



*For explanation of bracket numbers see Introduction. 



