364 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



explained on the assumption that they are, as in other animals, 

 hereditary survivals. 



Wiedersheim has pointed out more than one hundred 

 and eighty rudimentary or vestigial structures belonging to 

 the human body, which indicate an evolutionary relation- 

 ship with lower vertebrates. It would require a considerable 

 treatise to present the discoveries in reference to man's 

 organization, as Wiedersheim has done in his Structure oj 

 Alan. As passing illustrations of the nature of some of these 

 suggestive things bearing on the question of man's origin 

 may be mentioned : the strange grasping power of the newly 

 born human infant, retained for a short time, and enabling 

 the babe to sustain its weight; the presence of a tail and 

 rudimentary tail muscles; of rudimicntary ear muscles; of 

 gill-clefts, etc. 



Antiquity of Man. — The geological history of man is 

 imperfectly known, although sporadic explorations have 

 already accumulated an interesting series, especially as 

 regards the shape and capacity of skulls. The remains of 

 early quarternary man have been unearthed in various parts 

 of Europe, and the probable existence of man in the tertiary 

 period is generally admitted. As Osborn says, "Virtually 

 three links have been found in the chain of human ancestry." 

 The most primitive pre-human species is represented by 

 portions of the skull and of the leg bones found in Java by 

 the Dutch surgeon Dubois in the year 1890. These remains 

 were found in tertiary deposits, and were baptized under the 

 name of PitJiecantJiropus erectus. The structural position of 

 this fossil is between the chimpanzee, the highest of anthro- 

 poid apes, and the "Neanderthal man." With characteristic 

 scientific caution Osborn says that the Pithecanthropus 

 "belongs in the line of none of the existing anthropoid apes, 

 and falls very near, but not directly, in the line of human 

 ancestry." 



