CHAPTER XXX 

 THE MISSING LINK 



UNTIL the discovery of the wonderful fossil jaw 

 in the gravel of Piltdown, near Lewes in Sussex, 

 a favourite view as to the probable relationship of man 

 and existing apes was, that if you could trace back the 

 pedigree of man and of the chimpanzee into remote 

 antiquity far back in the Tertiary period — probably in 

 the early Miocene — you would arrive at a smallish 

 creature with, proportionately to its size, larger jaws 

 and teeth than any modern man, yet smaller than 

 those of the living man-like apes, and with a brain 

 not two-thirds the size of that of the least developed 

 of modern savages, yet larger (in proportion to its 

 general bulk) than that of the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, 

 and gibbons. This hypothetical creature would repre- 

 sent, it was held, the common ancestor of the two great 

 " strains " or " stocks " one of which in the course of 

 gradual modification gave rise to our living " humanity," 

 and various non-surviving offshoots on the way ; whilst 

 the other gave rise to the company of great apes, with 

 their tremendous jaws and dog-teeth, their small brains, 

 and great bony skull-crests for the attachment of huge 

 jaw muscles. 



It was insisted that the obvious and immediate 

 suggestion when once man's descent from animal 

 ancestry was admitted, namely, that man has taken 



^75 



