THE CAVE-MEN'S SKULLS 395 



are the most important of all yet discovered. They all 

 date from the middle Pleistocene period, the age of the 

 last great glaciers, earlier than the age of the Reindeer. 

 The Gibraltar skull (Fig. 77) we have all known for a 

 long time; it has been in the museum of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons for forty years, and two years ago 

 was very carefully examined and figured by Professor 

 Sollas, of Oxford. It is a specially valuable specimen, 

 because it shows the bones of the face as well as the 

 brain-case. From other specimens we know the lower 

 jaw. The lower jaw was deep and powerful, but, like 

 that of an ape, had a receding chin, or rather, we should 

 say, had no "chin-prominence" at all (compare Figs. 79, 

 80, 8 1, and 82). The new French specimen (Fig. 65) 

 is strongly prognathous. The orbits are enormous, and 

 the nose very flat and quite unique in its great breadth. 

 One of the two Neander-man skulls from the Belgian 

 cave of Spy shows the face bones, and these agree with 

 what has just been stated as to the French skull. 



Hence it appears that a short race with a very 

 strange and low-browed type of skull preceded the men 

 of the Reindeer Age. When, thirty years ago, only the 

 original skull-top from the Neander cave (Fig. 76) was 

 known, Virchow, of Berlin, considered it to be probably 

 that of an idiot, whilst Huxley expressed the opinion 

 that it indicates a race of men with decidedly low de- 

 velopment, and in some respects more ape-like characters 

 than modern Europeans ; but he held that it is not to 

 be considered as " a missing link," nor as taking us 

 appreciably nearer from modern man to the apes, since 

 it is most closely approached by the flat skulls, already 

 well known, of some of the South Australian natives, 

 both in shape and in the cubical capacity of the brain - 

 cavity. What I mean by the flatness of the skull may 

 be understood by looking at a side view of a monkey's 



