THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 7 



for as the first formed ripples of the widening circle caused by 

 a stone dropped into a pool are the outermost, so the descend- 

 ants of the earliest migrants should to-day be found farthest 

 from the center of origin. The fact that the most ancient 

 human remains in point of time thus far discovered are Java- 

 nese and therefore nearer the focal point is yet another bit 

 of evidence. 



It is with great confidence, therefore, that one looks to 

 Asia, which is now for the first time being systematically ex- 

 plored by the American Museum of Natural History, to solve 

 by actual findings this age-old problem of human origin. 



FOSSIL MAN 



Our final and, to the paleontologist, most convincing line 

 of evidence for man's antiquity lies in the discovery of actual 

 remains of human beings which a fortunate combination of 

 circumstances of burial, conservation, and subsequent discovery 

 have brought before us. That these are rare is self-evident, 

 for even under the most favorable conditions for fossilization, 

 those of shallow-water marine deposits, it has been estimated 

 that but 1,044 out f eac h 100,000 different forms that lived 

 are known to us. Can we expect, therefore, that the record of 

 what were evidently largely forest-dwelling creatures whose 

 remains are but rarely preserved and who in this instance un- 

 doubtedly had methods of disposing of the dead by burning, 

 possibly by consumption as an article of diet, or by merely cast- 

 ing out to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey, could 

 possibly be as perfect as that of the marine forms? One 

 marvels, not that the missing links in our chain of evidence are 

 many, but rather that we possess any chain at all. 



Conditions of preservation. There are but two conditions 

 under which the remains of man are ever found: one, the 

 older and rarer, in the valley sediments of rivers which deposit 

 and scour away and deposit again in time of flood or of tran- 



