hrdliCkaI SKEIxETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN 361 



possessed the casts of the specimens, but had evidently not subjected 

 the case to a detailed study and has nothing to say on the atlas. He 

 remarks, however, that certain features in the conformation of the 

 lower extremity of the Monte Hermoso femur are not such as are 

 presented by the primate thigh bone. ' ' This region of the specimen 

 reminds one more of the forms found among the Feliclx and CanidseJ' 

 And, "when Ameghino says that he must keep to his opinion until 

 such a combination of characteristics is shown in another than a pri- 

 mate femur, the case may be reversed and the proof may be demanded 

 before Ameghino's conclusions are accepted, that such a joint surface 

 as that in the Tetraprothomo femur can occur among the primates." 



In the discussion of Friedemann's paper v. Luschan makes only 

 the following remark in relation to the femur :^ "To speak here of 

 the Tetraprothomo thigh bone appears to me, in view alone of its 

 articular surface for the patella, wholly superfluous." 



Toward the end of the same year an important remark concerning 

 the Tetraprothomo femur occurs also in Schwalbe." In finishing his 

 report on the Diprothomo, Schwalbe says : " In a following work I 

 shall bring forth evidence that the intermediary member designated ^ 

 Tetraprothomo is also not retainable as a forerunner of man." Regard- 

 ing the atlas, he makes only the remark (p. 216) that, among the 

 remains of "fossil" Primates in South America, there is "one, the 

 atlas of Monte Hermoso,^ in the highest degree humanlike." In a 

 recent letter to the writer, finally,* Schwalbe says that in regard to the 

 Monte Hermoso atlas, he can not partake of the views of Lehmann- 

 Nitsche and considers the bone purely human. 



Subsequent pages will give the results of the writer's examination 

 of the two bones, atlas and femur, attributed to the Tetraprothomo 

 but it will be well to precede that part of the text by a brief report 

 on the barranca of Monte Hermoso b}^ the geologist of the expedition. 



Monte Hermoso: Geologic Notes 

 By Bailey Willis 



Monte Hermoso is a dune on the southern coast of Buenos Aires. 

 It surmounts a short section of the Pampean terrane, which is ex- 

 posed by wave erosion in a low bluff along the shore. First de- 

 scribed by Darwin, it has since been visited by many geologists 

 who have studied the Pampean. Its position, remote from other 

 sections of similar geologic constitution, gives it pecuUar interest, 

 while at the same time its isolation makes direct stratigraphic cor- 



1 Friedemann, M., Vorlage elnes Gipsabgnsses des Schadeldaches von Diprothomo platensis Ameghino; 

 in Zeitschr.fiir Ethn., Heft (i, Berlin, 1910, p. 938. 



2 Schwalbe, G., Studien zur Morpliologie der sUdamerikanischen Primatenformen; in Zeitschr. fiir 

 Morph. undAnthr., Band xm, Heft 2, Stuttgart, 1910, p. 225. 



3 "Ein dem mcnscfilichen dussserst ahnlicher Atlas von Monte Hermoso," etc. 

 <DatedMay 15. ign. 



