LIFE 



6n 



The interpretation of this find has elicited much difference of opin- 

 ion. By some the bones are thought to be those of an abnormal 

 man; by others, those of an ancestral type between man and his 

 remote ancestry. Recent studies throw doubt on the Pliocene 



Lni 



Fig. 503. Profile of the skull of the Pithecanthropus erectus (line PC) compared 

 with profiles of the lowest men and highest apes; Spy I and Spy II, the men of Spy; 

 A'/, the Neanderthal man; ///, a gibbon (Hylobales leuciscus); Sm, an Indian ape 

 (Semnopithecits manrns); and At, a chimpanzee (Aiithropopithecus troglodytes). 

 (After Marsh.) 



age of the beds in which the fossil was found. 1 They may be 

 Pleistocene. 



Marine life. The record of marine life on the Atlantic coast of 

 America is meager, but it appears that species which then ranged 

 from Bering Sea to the north Atlantic are now confined to temperate 

 latitudes. 2 On the coast of California the early Pliocene faunas 

 indicate a temperature lower than that of the Miocene, while the 

 later Pliocene faunas point to sub-boreal conditions. 3 On the other 

 hand, Pliocene fossils from Alaska (vicinity of Nome) indicate for 

 this locality a climate similar to that of north Japan and the 



1 Berry, Science, Vol. XXXVII, p. 418. 



2 Dall, Jour. Geol., Vol. XVII. 



8 Arnold, Ralph, Jour. Geol., Vol. XVII. 



