EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES 173 



men who lived in prehistoric times, but we need con- 

 sider here only one form which lived long before the 

 glacial period in the so-called Tertiary times. In 1894 

 a scientist named Dubois discovered in Java some of the 

 remains of an animal which was partly ape and partly 

 man. So well did these remains exhibit the characters 

 of Haeckel's hypothetical ape-man, Pithecanthropus, 

 that the name fitted the creature like a glove. Spe- 

 cifically, the cranium presents an arch which is inter- 

 mediate between that of the average ape and of the 

 lowest human beings. It possessed protruding brows 

 like those of the gorilla. The estimated brain capacity 

 was about one thousand cubic centimeters, four hundred 

 more than that of any known ape, and much less than 

 the average of the lower human races. Even without 

 other characters, these would indicate that the animal 

 was actually a '' missing link" in the scientific sense, 

 — that is, a form which is near the common progenitors 

 of the modern species of apes and of man. We would 

 not expect to find a missing link that was actually 

 intermediate in all respects between modern apes and 

 modern men, any more than we should look for actual 

 connecting bands of tissue between any two leaves 

 upon a tree. A missing link, in the true sense, is Uke 

 a bud of earlier years which stood near the point from 

 which two twigs of the present day now diverge. So 

 Pithecanthropus is a part of the chain leading to man, 

 not far from the place where the human line sprang 

 from a lower primate ancestor. 



Of the fossil remains of true prehistoric men. little 

 need be said. We cannot know whether the races now 

 living in the regions where these remains are found are 



