March 7, i90[] 



NA TURE 



4S5 



those of the other lobes of the brain, control, to a large 

 extent, our higher intellectual faculties. If we study the 

 collection of preparations of the brains of apes in our 

 museum, it seems to me we shall arrive at a similar con- 

 clusion to that expressed by Prof. Edinger, which is, that 

 the gyri of the brain of man and of the anthropoid apes 

 are similar in character, with the marked exception of those 

 convolutions which enter into the formation of the frontal 

 lobes. The superior and the middle gyri of these lobes in 

 anthropoid apes are always much shorter than they are in 

 the brains of average Europeans, and what is of especial im- 

 portance is, that in the brains of anthropoid apes the inferior 

 frontal gyri only exist in a rudimentary condition of develop- 

 ment ; this deficiency is very marked with respect to that area 

 of the left inferior gyrus which contains the nerve elements 

 which control our faculty of articulate language. It seems 

 probable that the rudimentary condition of this gyrus in apes is 

 therefore the anatomical expression of the inferiority of these 

 animals to man in intelligence ; our intellectual development 

 depending on our possessing the faculty of speech. It may be, 

 anthropoid apes having only rudimentary, if any, specialised 

 nerve centre of speech, that the other parts of their anterior 

 lobes have remained in a comparatively undeveloped condition ; 

 whereas the left inferior frontal lobe of man's brain having 

 become highly specialised, and, with it, his power of language, 

 the other convolutions of his anterior lobes, which govern his 

 intellectual faculties, have been stimulated to increased action, 

 and in this way the characteristic expansion of the fore-brain 

 has been evolved among all the more highly civilised races of 

 the human family. But our contention is that the factors which 

 govern the growth of the skull differ from those which develop 

 the brain, and that the imperfect evolution of the frontal lobes 

 among anthropoid apes is to a large extent due to the premature 

 ossification of that part of the skull which encloses the fore- 

 brain. However this may be, the possession of fully-developed 

 anterior lobes of the brain, especially of its left inferior gyrus, is 

 the distinctive character of the central nervous system of all 

 . those families of mankind who possess well-developed intel- 

 lectual capacities. On the other hand, if we compare the skull 

 of an Englishman with that of one of the na,tives of Australia, 

 we see what a wide difference there is between the development 

 of their frontal regions, and also as to the nature of the sutures 

 of many of their skulls. We shall further discover, from 

 . specimens in our museum, that the inhabitants of western Europe 

 in the later tertiary and early quaternary period, as regards the 

 ossification and form, especially of the frontal region of their 

 skulls, more closely resembled that of the chimpanzee than the 

 race of men now inhabiting Europe. 



Since Hunter and Lawrence's time, considerable progress 

 has been made in the science of geology and anthropology. 

 Nevertheless, in our search for. knowledge concerning the 

 origin and development of prehistoric man ii) western 

 Europe, we are still hampered by the limited supply of his 

 remains. It could hardly have been otherwise, considering the 

 perishable nature of the human skeleton and the vast length 

 of time, and the great geological changes which have occurred 

 since man appeared in our part of the world. But we have 

 additional evidence concerning the prehistoric inhabitants of 

 this part of Europe, for they haye left us some of their imperish- 

 able handiwork in the shape of flint and stone implements, 

 which during the past century have been carefully studied in 

 relation to the geological strata in which they were discovered, 

 by Lord Avebury, Prof. Boyd Dawkins, Prqf. Presfwich, Sir 

 John Evans, the late Sir William Flower, together with many 

 other English and foreign anthropologists. Fiiom the form and 

 workmanship of these stone implements we are now able to 

 • classify and assign them to the various periods in which they 

 were manufactured by the early inhabitants of our part of the 

 world. 



Up to within recent times it was held that no human beings 

 existed on the earth before the quaternary geological epoch, 

 but in the year 1867 the Abbe Burgeois exhibited a .collection 

 of chipped flint weapons which he had discovered in a previously 

 undisturbed tertiary formation ; it was not, however, until 1872 

 that these instruments were admitted to have been made by 

 man or some other animal living previously to the commence- 

 ment of the quaternary period. Precisely similar flint weapons 

 have since been discovered in tertiary strata in various localities 

 in Europe and in Asia. In the year 1894 Dr. Eugene Dubois 

 found the upper part of a skull (calvaria) in close proximity to 



NO. 1636, VOL. 63] 



a femur and two molar teeth in a well-defined tertiary geological 

 formation in the island of Java. Dr. Dubois was employed by 

 the Dutch Government to examine and report on the fossil- 

 bearing strata of Java, and while engaged on this work he dis- 

 covered, embedded in a hard mass of tertiary tuffs, the bones 

 above referred to ; he brought these fossils to Europe and sub- 

 mitted them for examination to the leading anatomists of this and 

 other countries. They concurred in the opinion that the femur was 

 a human bone belonging to a man of a very low type ; "and de- 

 monstrating the fact that while rendering its possessor capable of 

 the bipedal mode of locomotion, he still retained some vestiges of 

 adaptation loan arboreal existence." There was a difference of 

 opinion concerning the calvaria, for it was calculated that the 

 capacity of this skull did not exceed 850 cubic centimetres, 

 the capacity of the largest cranium of anthropoid apes being 

 600 cubic centimetres. Until the Java skull was found, the 

 earliest known human skulls had a cranial capacity of about 

 1220 cubic centimetres. After an exhaustive analysis of the 

 anatomical characters of the Java calvaria as compared with the 

 skulls of man and apes, Prof. Schwalbe has arrived at the con- 

 clusion that the Java skull, taking its capacity and form into 

 consideration, "is on the border-line between that of man and 

 anthropoid apes " ; it is more closely allied to the skulls of the 

 Neanderthal group of men than it is to the crania of the higher 

 apes, but it is much nearer in form to the skulls of the chim- 

 panzee than it is to the cranium of the average adult European 

 of the present day. Nevertheless, from a study of the impres- 

 sions of the convolutions of the brain on the interior of this 

 calvaria it is shown that the inferior frontal convolutions are 

 well marked and api:)roach in form those of man ; and although 

 the superficies of this convolution is less than half that of the 

 men of the present day, it is double that of the largest 

 brain of any known anthropoid ape. This fact suggests that the 

 Java man possessed in some slight degree the faculty of speech 

 and that his intellectual capacity was higher than that of any of 

 the anthropoid apes. The post-orbital index or narrowing of 

 the Java skull is I9'3, as compared with the average of living 

 Europeans, which is 12. In this measurement the Java skull 

 comes nearer to the Neanderthal group than to that of anthropoid 

 apes. 



In the employing of skulls, which we believe to be the most 

 trustworthy test of human races, we classify them under three 

 heads according to the measurement of their cranial indices. 

 In other words, the measurement of the greatest breadth of the 

 cranium, expressed in percentage of its greatest length, is our 

 guide as to the race to which an individual belongs from a 

 craniological point of view. When the cranial index rises 

 above 80 the head is called " brachycephalic," a broad head ; 

 when it falls below 75 the term "dolichocephalic," or long 

 head, is applied to it. Indices between 75 and 80 are charac- 

 terised as " mesocephalic," intermediate heads. , 



We have in our museum casts of two crania, and other bones, 

 forming part of human skeletons which were found resting on' a 

 ridge of calcareous rock overlooking the river Orneau, in the 

 commune of Spy, Belgium. These remains were unearthed 

 with great care, and there is every reason to believe that they 

 were originally deposited where they were discovered, beitig 

 covered over with four well-defined beds of debris and clay, in 

 which were found the bones of the rhinoceros and the mammot^, 

 also flint weapons of the Mousterian epoch. One of these 

 skulls h^s marked palaeolithic characters, its brow ridges, like 

 those of the higher apes and the Java skull, are prominent, 

 and the forehead indicates the low type of human being of which 

 this cranium formed a part. Its form, like that of all the other 

 human inhabitants of Europe as yet discovered in the early 

 geological strata of the quaternary (pre-glacial or inter-glacial) 

 period, is of the long type ; its sutures are simple and for the 

 cl>ief part are consolidated. We have another cast, presented 

 to our museum by Prof. Huxley, one of our most talented and 

 earnest workers in the science of anthropology, taken from the 

 Neanderthal cranium. This cranium was found, with other por- 

 tions of a human skeleton in a limestone cave near Dusseldorf. 

 This cave was raised some sixty feet above the existing bed of 

 the river Dussel, and its floor was covered to a depth of fiye 

 feet by fluvi^tile deposits, beneath which these human remains 

 were discovered. We have in our collection a skull of tr\e 

 cl\aracteristic palaeolithic type, presented to the college by pn,e 

 of our foirmer presidents, vfhose memory is treasured by all who 

 knew him. Prof. George Busk ; it was found in. a layer of 

 brecciat^4,Jaliis under the north front of the Rock of Gibraltar. 



