ANCIENT REMAINS OF MAN HRDLICKA. 501 



The Trinil femur (pi. 4), according to Dubois, Manouvrier, and 

 others, bears a close resemblance to the human thigh bone, both in 

 size and shape: nevertheless judging from the illustration it presents 

 also some important differences. Its length, 45.5 cm., equals that of a 

 human femur from a man 1.70 meters (5 feet, 7 inches) in stature, 

 and of proportionate strength.^ Notwithstanding these dimensions, 

 however, the relatively large inclination of the bone from the vertical 

 when stood up on its condyles, and the relatively moderate-sized 

 head and lower articular extremity, suggest that, as was the case 

 with the skullcap, the bone may proceed from a female. 



The femur plainly belonged to a strong being maintaining erect or 

 near-erect posture and marching mostly or entirely biped, as man. 



The principal differences of the bone from a modern human femur 

 consist in its less-marked antero-posterior curve, in a more evenly 

 cylindrical shaft, in the more mesial position of the smaller tro- 

 chanter, in the intertrochanteric line being less raised and hence 

 more simian in character, and in the popliteal space which, as a rule 

 concave from side to side in present man, is convex in the Trinil 

 specimen. 



THE '' EOANTHROPUS DAWSONI." 



A somewhat problematical as yet but deeply interesting find of 

 ancient human skeletal remains has recently come to light in Eng- 

 land. The specimen representing this discovery is an imperfect 

 cranium, with a part of the lower jaw and a canine tooth. It is 

 known as the Sussex or Piltdown skull, or more technically as the 

 Eoanthropus Daivsoni, and its preservation is due to Mr. Charles 

 DaAvson. It is deposited in the British Museum of Natural History 

 at Kensington and was first reported, with the circumstances of 

 the find, on December 18, 1912, before the London Geological 

 Society.- 



The history of this specimen, as given by Mr. Dawson, illustrates 

 the usefulness and need, especially in the Old World, of scientific 

 supervision of excavations. Mr. Dawson's statement is as follows : ' 



Several years ago I was walking along a farm road close to Piltdown Com- 

 mon, Fletchiug (Sussex), when I noticed that the road had been mended with 

 some peculiar brown flints not usual in the district. On inquiry I was aston- 

 ished to leai'n that they were dug from a gravel bed on the farm, and shortly 



^The circumference of the shaft at middle is 9 cm., or one-fifth of the length of the 

 bone, which proportion is often equaled in present man : the breadth at middle is 2.75 cm. 

 Numerous other measurements of the bone are given in Dubois's " Pithecanthi-opus 

 ereetus," etc., 4°, Batavia, 1894, p. 21, et seq. 



2 Dawson, Charles, A. Smith Woodward, and G. Elliot Smith. On the discovery of a 

 Palaeolithic skull and mandible in a flint-bearing gravel overlying the Wealden (Hastings 

 beds) at Piltdown, Fletching (Sussex). (Quart. .lourn. Geol. Soc. for March, 1913, vol. 

 69, pp. 117-144.) See also Haddon, A. C, Eoanthropus Dawsoni (Science, Jan. 17, 1913, 

 pp. 91-92) ; and MacCurdy, G. 6., Ancestor hunting: The significance of the Piltdown 

 skull (Amer. Anthropologist, vol. 15, 1913, pp. 248-256). 



» L. c, p, 117 et seq. 



