ISO THE HUMAN SKULL 



from other localities. This extinct species is not 

 thoroughly known, but it clearly belongs to a 

 lower grade of organisation than H. sapiens." 

 Whether, in the teeth of the extraordinary diver- 

 gence of opinion, not merely as to relative date, 

 but as to general characteristics, which the con- 

 spectus just given so clearly betrays, a dogmatic 

 assertion of the kind just quoted is in any way 

 justifiable, my readers can judge for themselves. 

 Omitting all account of a number of skulls de- 

 scribed in this article when it first appeared, 

 since the more important examples will be dealt 

 with at a later page, we may pass to the consider- 

 ation of the remarkable remains discovered a few 

 years ago in Java by Dr. Eugen Dubois. These 

 finds were made in a probably Pliocene deposit, 

 and consisted of (i) a molar tooth, (2) a frag- 

 ment of skull found one metre distant from the 

 tooth. These discoveries were made in 1891. 

 In the following year were found (3) a femur 

 at fifteen metres distance from the skull, and 

 (4) a second molar tooth at three metres from 

 the same. It is, of course, by no means certain 

 that all these portions of bone belonged to the 

 same body, nor can that question ever be definitely 

 set at rest. It is also a curious fact, as the dis- 

 coverer of the fragments pointed out, that during 

 five years' work over an area some hundreds of 

 square miles in extent, these were the only frag- 

 ments of the kind discovered.* Concerning the 

 actual nature of these remains there is the most 

 extraordinary divergence of opinion, a divergence 



* See p. 185 for further notes on the excavations and their result. 



