278 



NA TURE 



[January 7, 1909 



for several generations, but when it comes its con- 

 clusions will have to be accepted, for it consists of the 

 actual facts as to the development of life on the globe. 

 The weight assigned by Steinmann to the value of 

 the historic method is not exagg'erated, but his methods 

 of using it are open to question. 



He advances two main principles, racial immor- 

 talit)' and the primary importance of external 

 characters. He emphatically denies the current belief 

 that whole classes of animals and plants have become 

 extinct. He says groups of animals always survive, 

 though we fail to recognise the connection between 

 successive generations. That organic variation should 

 never have followed unsuitable directions and that 

 there are no dead ends in the tree of life is a startling 

 doctrine. This principle of racial immortality leads 

 Prof. Steinmann to conclusions which are not likely 

 to be generally accepted. The trilobites, according 

 to his views, must have lineal descendants, and he finds 

 that various insects are the progeny of different 

 families of trilobites. 



Prof. Steinmann's second principle is equally revolu- 

 tionary. He holds (p. 119) that " for phylogeny the 

 most significant characters are sculpture and form." 

 Engineers have been driven to give torpedoes shapes 

 which resemble those of some sharks, some Mesozoic 

 marine reptiles and whales. This external similarity 

 is usually regarded as an adaptation to the physical 

 necessities of rapid progress through water; but this 

 homoplastic e.\planation is rejected by Prof. Stein- 

 mann. In accordance with his view that form and 

 sculpture are the best guides to relationships, he main- 

 tains that the whales are the direct descendants of 

 Mesozoic reptiles. The numerous characters in which 

 the Cetacea agree with mammals and differ from 

 reptiles Prof. Steinmann dismisses as of secondary 

 importance, and as due to a sort of zoological fashion. 

 He maintains that their external resemblances show 

 that the various Cetacea are derived from various 

 groups of reptiles. The Delphinidae (dolphins and 

 porpoises), according to Steinmann, are the de- 

 scendants of the Ichthyosaurians, the sperm whales 

 of the Plesiosaurs, and the whalebone whales of such 

 reptiles as Clidastes and Mosasaurus. Similarly, he 

 derives the Casuaries from Ceratosaurus, the Pata- 

 gonian Miocene bird Phororhacos from Belodon, and 

 the walrus from Dinoceras. 



Prof. Steinmann's views as to the relationships of 

 various invertebrates and plants are equally startling. 

 The lunicates he represents ingeniously as shell-less 

 descendants of the Rudistidce, and the characters 

 believed to connect the ascidians with the ancestors 

 of the invertebrates, he says, are of secondary import- 

 ance, and have been recently acquired. 



Prof. Steinmann has done such valuable work both 

 in palaeontology and ideology that his views are always 

 entitled to careful consideration ; but he must not be 

 surprised if the arguments in his present essay are 

 generally dismissed as unconvincing, for they require 

 the re-classification of both animal and vegetable 

 kinfjdonis on lines which have been almost unani- 

 mouslv rejected bv modern biologists. 



J. W. G. 

 NO. 2045, VOL. 79] 



OVR BOOK SHELF. 

 Das Gehiss des Meiischen tind der Anthrof>onwrphen. 

 Vergleicliend-anatomische Untersuchiingcn. Zu- 

 glcicli ciu Bcitrag zur mcnscMichcn Stamm- 

 "geschichte. By Dr P. Adloff. Pp. 165; 9 text- 

 figures, 27 plates. (Berlin : Julius Springer, 1908.) 

 Price 15 marks. 

 This excellent book is part of the literature of an 

 arduous if somewhat wordy warfare concerning the 

 genealogy of mankind in general and of that variety 

 in particular known as the " Neanderthal " or 

 " Spy " man which broke out some years ago 

 amongst the anatomists along the Rhine valley, and, 

 as this work shows, is still being carried on with 

 great vigour. The outbreak was really a consequence 

 of the discovery of Pithecanthropus ercctus by Eugene 

 Dubois in 1S94. In the light of that discovery, Prof. 

 Schwalbe, of Strassburg, commenced a critical re- 

 examination of the remains of the Neanderthal-Spy 

 race, and came to the conclusion that they could not 

 be regarded as ancestral to modern Europeans owing 

 to their many physical peculiarities, and that they 

 constituted a species of mankind, to which the name 

 Homo priitiigciiiiis was applied. 



Prof. KoUmann, of Basel, slighted the specific marks 

 assigned by Schwalbe to Homo primigeiiius, and set 

 out to find the ancestry of modern man in a race of 

 pygmies, with as yet but little success. Then came 

 the discovery of the Krapina men in Croatia by 

 Gorjanovie-Kraniberg-er, with teeth belonj;ing to some 

 ten individuals in excellent preservation, and of a type 

 almost unknown among modern men. While the dis- 

 coverer regarded the Krapina men as mere variants 

 of modern man, Adloff excludes them from the 

 ancestry of modern Europeans, and gives them the 

 specific name of Homo antiquus. 



The discussions and the disputes have been widened 

 by the Dutch anatomists, Klaatsch (now in Breslau) 

 and Bolk, of .Amsterdam, the first of whom upholds 

 the theory that man and anthropoids have sprung 

 independently from a lemuroid stock, while the 

 second maintains that the old-world apes and monkeys 

 are derived from a stock akin to the South American 

 monkeys. It was to clear up the points in dispute 

 that Dr. .Adloff prnductd the work under review ; 

 but it is to be feared their settlement is as far off as 

 ever. Dr. Adloff has made a special study of teeth 

 and has taken much pains to obtain access to all 

 available material. He has described and fifjured all 

 he has seen with accuracy, and thus produced a work 

 which must prove of the greatest value to all who are 

 investigating- the problems connected with the origin 

 of man. The facts will stand, but it is to be feared 

 that most of the author's inferences are not of an 

 abiding value. The discussion has scarcely received 

 the attention it deserves in England; the present 

 position of matters may be gleaned frem this work. 



A. K. 



T/ie Hope Reports. Vol. vi. (1906-8). Edited bv 

 Prof. E. B. I'oulton, F.R.S. (Oxford: Printed for 

 private circulation by H. Hart, 1908.) 

 The memoirs contained in the bulky sixth volume of 

 the Hope Reports were published separately in the 

 course of the two years from June, igo6, to June, 

 1908. They bear eloquent witness to the quantity and 

 quality of work which is being turned out by the 

 Hope Department of Zoology in the University of 

 Oxford. The first ten memoirs are chiefly or wholly 

 concerned with bionomic subjects — e.g. particular 

 cases of mimicry sometimes studied on the spot, the 

 recent developments in the theory of mimicry, experi- 

 ments on seasonally dimorphic forms, the natural 



