296 



DISCOVERY 



existence of man in Oligocene and Eocene times, 

 required a far greater degree of heat for its production 

 than could be attained by ordinary agency, and was 

 probably due to volcanic action. 



The results of Dr. Hrdlicka's anthropological in- 

 vestigations entirely agreed with this view of the 

 geological evidence, and in no case did he find that 

 the skeletal remains were of a type differing markedly 

 from that of the American Indian. Evidence upon 

 which Ameghino had relied was due either to faulty 

 methods, faulty observation, or faulty deduction. In 

 a number of cases he pointed out that deformation of 

 the skull, either posthumous or else artificial, such 

 as was practised by the Aymara Indians, had been 

 misunderstood by Ameghino and had led him to an 

 entirely wrong conclusion as to the character of his 

 specimens. 



The masterly analj-sis of the evidence by these two 

 eminent scientists, who were not merely impartial, 

 but were, if anything, anxious to be convinced, has 

 not been seriously questioned, and it may be regarded 

 as conclusively settled that no greater antiquity can 

 be claimed for man in the south of the American 

 continent than in the north. Lest, however, it should 

 be thought that the conclusions of Ameghino and 

 those of his school were too lightly put forward, it 

 may be pointed out that so distinguished a scientist 

 as Dr. Bowman, the geologist of the Yale expedition 

 to Peru, was convinced that he had discovered in- 

 dubitable evidence which warranted him in attributing 

 an antiquity of anything between 10,000 and 75,000 

 years to human skeletal remains discovered at Cuzco 

 — a view which was only retracted after a careful 

 re-examination of the evidence on the spot by Prof. 

 Hiram Bingham. 



Notwithstanding the unsatisfactory conclusion which 

 inevitably results from a careful examination of the 

 evidence adduced for the antiquity of man in America, 

 it is not without profit that it should be reviewed. It 

 serves as a warning that any fresh piece of evidence, 

 which at first sight seems to warrant the attribution 

 of a high antiquity to human remains found in America, 

 must be received with extreme caution, and very 

 carefully weighed before it can be accepted. In the 

 case of the recently discovered tooth from the Upper 

 Pliocene beds of Nebraska to which reference was 

 made at the beginning of this note, where, so far as 

 our information goes at present, the geological evidence 

 is beyond dispute, its identification as a relic of a 

 precursor of man will need most careful scrutiny and, 

 as a matter of fact, it has already been called in question. 

 It this connection, it must be remembered that no 

 traces of the great ape type have hitherto been dis- 

 covered in America — a fact which in itself must needs 

 give rise to some hesitation before discarding previous 



conclusions as to the relativelv modern appearance of 

 the human stock on that continent. 



{Concluded) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Skeletal Remains suggesting or attributed to Early Man in North 

 America. By Ales Hrdlicka, Bureau of American 

 Ethnology, Washington, Bulletin 33, 1907. 



Early Man in South America. By Ales Hrdlicka in collabora- 

 tion with W- H. Holmes, Bailey Willis, and Fred Eugene 

 Wright, and Clarence N. Fenner. Bureau of American 

 Ethnology-, BuUetin 52, Washington, 1912. 



Handbook of American Antiquities. Part I. By W. H. 

 Holmes. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 60, 

 Washington, igig. 



Tlie Problem of the Unity or Plurality and the Probable Placs 

 of Origin of the American Aborigines. By J. Walter 

 Fewkes, Ales Hrdlicka, and others. American Anthro- 

 pologist, Lancaster, Pa., U.S.A. New Series. Vol. xiv, 

 1912, pp, 1-59. 



Further references will be found in these publications. 



Eclipses of the Sun 



By H. Spencer Toy, B.Sc, A.Inst.P,, F.R.A.S. 



Eclipses of the sun may be divided into three classes 

 — partial, annular, and total. 



In the first, the moon does not come directly 

 between us and the sun, but passes a little on one 

 side of the central line and so obscures only a part of 

 the solar disc. In the second, the annular form, the 

 moon is on the central line, but appears to be too 

 small to hide the whole of the surface of the sun, so 

 that even when it is projected entirely against it at 

 the maximum phase, it is stiU surrounded by a ring 

 of light. In the case of the total eclipse, however, 

 the sun completely disappears behind the moon. 



It is a curious and fortunate coincidence that the 

 apparent sizes of the sun and moon are so nearly the 

 same. The diameter of the sun is nearly four hundred 

 times greater than that of our satellite, but its distance 

 is also almost four hundred times greater, so that 

 when looked at from the earth one body appears to 

 be as large as the other. To these circumstances we 

 owe our ability to see both the annular and the total 

 form of eclipse, for as the sun and moon run through 

 the small changes in their respective distances from 

 the earth, so their apparent sizes vary somewhat and 

 give one of them a slight preponderance over the other. 



The geometrical conditions of an eclipse of the sun 

 are shown in Fig. i (for clearness it is not drawn to 

 scale), which shows the moon, m, between the earth and 

 sun, s, throwing its shadow towards some part of the 



