Tl6 



NATURE 



[December 5, 1895 



Such a supposition would necessarily involve the assumption 

 that the anthropoid apes were a degenerated branch from the 

 common stem. This view he explained by means of the accom- 

 panying diagram. 



S! mil doe 



Pithecanthrcpus 



the anthropoids are degenerate descendants from the human stem. 

 Thus Prof. Sollas was less inclined to agree with Dr. Dubois thai> 

 with Prof. Cunningham in estimating the human characters of 

 the Javan fossils. 



Dr. Dubois thanked the Society for the honour they had done 

 him and for their kindness. He explained why he placed 

 Pithecanthropus in a different position in the genealogical tree 

 from that assigned to him by Prof Cunningham. They kaew 

 very little about the laws of evolution, which in some cases 

 proceeded slowly and in others quickly. 



The proceedings then terminated. 



Prof. Haddon said : Ever since the evolution hypothesis had 

 shed such an illumination upon nature, biologists had believed in 

 the previous existence of forms intermediate between man and the 

 lower animals ; and it was with a fearful joy that they heard of 

 Dr. Dubois' discovery, and then they subjected the remains to a 

 searching criticism, with the result that all agreed that the indi- 

 vidual to whom the cranium belonged was transitional in character 

 between the apes and man — some thinking him more ape-like, 

 and others more human ; balancing the one set of opinions 

 against the other, they could only come to the opiniori that it 

 was an intercalated type. Whilst agreeing with Dr. Dubois in 

 all his statements of fact, he concurred with Prof Cunningham 

 in thinking that the size of the cranium was an insuperable 

 difficulty in the way of placing the individual to which it be- 

 longed below the point in the genealogical tree where the anthro- 

 poids branched off. Palneontological evidence points to the fact 

 that in the evolution of any series of mammals the brain tends 

 to increase in size ; at all events, there is no known case of a 

 brain decreasing to less than half its original dimensions. Nor 

 did it appear to him to meet the case to suppose that by doubling 

 the body of a gibbon the biain would be equally doubled in size ; 

 there was no such proportion between body growth and brain 

 growth. 



Dr. Pearsall, a leading dental surgeon in Dublin, made some 

 remarks about the teeth, and said that the human characters of 

 the teeth were very striking. 



Prof Sollas agreed with the preceding speakers as to the 

 invaluable evidence afforded by these fossil remains. They 

 indicated an organism which was either a pithecoid man or 

 a renmrkably human ape ; which of these alternatives might 

 prove to be true was a matter of secondary importance, the fact 

 remained that we had before us traces of the most simian 

 ancestor of the human race yet known. 



The materials for determining its geological age were abun- 

 dant, but not yet fully worked out. Dr. Dubois, however, 

 stated that the associated mammalian fauna stood in close rela- 

 tion to that of the Nerbada beds and the Upper Siwaliks of 

 India ; and so far as it might be possible to correlate the Javan 

 deposits with those of Europe, they would appear to be older 

 than our river-drifts, and possibly on the same horizon as the 

 forest-bed of Norfolk. In this case the intervals in time, and the 

 differences of structure which separate the Javan fossils from the 

 race of Spy, and this from existing man would be, so to speak, 

 proportional. 



In the Miocene times we first meet with a few modern genera 

 struggling to the front from a crowd of competitors ; and in the 

 Pliocene a few modern species emerge, and thus, in the case of 

 the human race, we might expect to find the existing species 

 Homo sapiens replaced by some earlier representative, say 

 Homo innocens in the Pliocene, and the genus Homo by allied 

 though different genera of the family Hominidce in the Miocene. 

 While, however, Zr(?;;««/ate are not yet known from the Miocene, 

 ' remains of anthropoid apes {Dryopitliectis) are, and thus what 

 palseontological evidence exists lends no favour to the view that. 



NO. 1362, VOL. 53] 



SCIENCE IN THE MAGAZINES. 

 CEVERAL articles on more and less scientific topics appear in 

 "^ the Contemporary. Mr. Herbert Spencer contributes the 

 seventh of his series of articles on Ihe development of pro- 

 fessional institutions, the subject this month being the teacher. 

 It is shown that the primitive conception of the teacher is the 

 conception of one who gives instruction in sacred matters, so> 

 that the priest and teacher were identical. The priesthood is, 

 for a long time, the sole source of knowledge, but in the course of 

 evolution the teaching functions of the priest are shared by a 

 non-priestly class, and thus the secular educator comes into 

 existence. Mr. Spencer quotes, in support of this theory of 

 development, extracts from the records of peoples, past and 

 present, in various parts of the world. The evidence adduced 

 goes to show "how teaching was in the beginning exclusively 

 concerned with religious doctrines and rites, and how there 

 eventually began to rise a teaching which, in some measure 

 detached from the religious institutions, at the same time entered 

 upon other subjects than the religious." In some cases, the 

 normal genesis of teachers from priests was interfered with, but 

 that does not alter the general fact of such development. 

 The differentiation of the teaching class from the priestly class- 

 is even now incomplete, for a large number of the private 

 schools in our own kingdom are carried on by clergymen- 

 Finally, as in other professions, segregation and consolidation 

 into unions and associations have followed upon differentiation. 



M. Berthelot, the renowned chemist, lately appointed French 

 Minister for Foreign Affairs, was a close friend of Renan. A 

 few incidents referring to that friendship, and what Renan 

 might have thought of the appointment, are given in the 

 Contemporary by Mr. Albert D. Vandam. The same review 

 contains the first instalment of an article on " Physics and 

 Sociology," by Mr. W^ H. Mallock. The character of the 

 article is sufficiently indicated by the following headings of the 

 sections, (i) On the application to social phenomena of the 

 methods and principles derived from physical science ; (2) on 

 the crucial difference between the subject-matter of physical 

 science and that of social science, which render the method of 

 study proper to the first inadequate when applied to the second.; 

 (3) on the deliberate rejection by contemporary sociologists of 

 the methods by which, in social science, the methods of physical 

 science must be supplemented ; (4) on the nearness with which 

 corttemporary sociologists have approached the methods of study, 

 which they have nevertheless missed or rejected. The Con- 

 temporary also contains articles on the Secondary Education 

 Report, by Prof. J. Massie ; Mr. Balfour's philosophic writings, 

 by Mr. Norman Hapgood ; and a reply, by Prof. A. A. Bevan, 

 to an article in which Prof. Sayce dealt with Biblical criticism 

 from an archreological point of view. 



The first number of the English series of the Popular Science 

 Monthly contains a large amount of readable matter on scientific 

 topics. Accompanying a description, by Mr. H. P. Fitzgerald 

 Marriott, of the Palaeolithic skeletons discovered near Mentone 

 in 1892 and 1894, are three good illustrations reproduced from 

 photographs of the remains. Prof Sully contributes an interest- 

 ing paper entitled " Studies of Childhood," and there are also 

 popular articles on consumption, the saltness of the sea, and 

 other subjects. We notice a letter entitled " Are Animals Left- 

 handed? "by Mr. D. S. Jordan. Several observers have stated 

 that parrots grasp and hold food with the left claw, but Mr. 

 Jordan concludes from his observations that " the appearance of 

 left-footedness is due entirely to the fact that those who offer the 

 finger or food to parrots do so as a rule with the right hand. 

 Repetition of this process makes the parrot more or less left- 

 footed in time." 



Lieut. B. Baden Powell describes his " Air-Car, or Man- 



