Notes and Comments. i\y 



•one, and, really, the worship of them is one .... After all, 

 polytheism is the true faith. Let us therefore not sink to the 

 condition of the present monotheistic occupants of that divine 

 valley : huge fat black people, grunting after the fruits of the 

 earth ; or lean, long-eared eloquent people, braying their 

 wisdom at the eternal hills ; or great tortoises sunning them- 

 selves into life among the broken marbles of the past. Let the 

 lovers of art spare roses for the altar of science, and the lovers 

 of science lilies for the shrines of the arts ; and we shall ah find 

 sufficient asphodel, at least, everywhere about us, for both.' 



• THE PILTDOWN JAW. 



Mr. W. P. Pycraft writes on ' The Jaw of the Piltdown 

 Man ; a Reply to Mr. Gerritt S. Miller.' Mr. Miller, of the 

 Smithsonian Institute, Washington, who has not seen the 

 actual remains from Piltdown, but has been supplied with 

 plaster casts, is apparently convinced that the Piltdown skull 

 is human, while the jaw is that of a chimpanzee. Mr. Pycraft, 

 whose excellent work in reference to the Archgeopteryx will 

 be remembered, deals with Mr. Miller's arguments in detail. 

 By the time Mr. Pycraft has finished it is apparent that Mr. 

 Miller's opinion is not one that will have much weight in the 

 scientific world. ' A very brief study of his arguments will 

 show that they are based on assumptions such as would never 

 have been made had he not committed the initial riistake 

 of overlooking the fact that these remains are of extreme 

 antiquity, and hence are to be measured by the standards of 

 the palaeontologist rather than of the anthropologist.' 



ANOTHER EOANTHROPUS DAWSONI. 



Probably no greater proof of the accuracy of Dr. A. Smith 

 Woodward's conclusion with regard to the nature of the 

 Piltdown remains could be desired, than the recent further 

 discovery of similar remains, a mile from the first pit ex- 

 amined, which are unquestionably of another individual of 

 the same species. These were described at a recent meeting 

 of the Geological Society by Dr. Woodward. He reports 

 that : Excavations last summer round the margin of the 

 gravel-pit at Piltdown (Sussex) supported the conclusion 

 that the deposit is a varied shingle-bank, and that the three 

 layers containing Palaeolithic remains and derived Pliocene 

 fossils are approximately of the same age. Many elongated 

 flints and pieces of Wealden sandstone were observed in the 

 bottom sandy clay with their long axis more or less nearly 

 vertical. No teeth or bones were found, but one nodular flint 

 obtained from the same layer as Eoanthropus, seems to have 

 been used by man as a hammer-stone. This is not purposely 

 shaped, but merely battered along faces that happened to be 

 useful when the stone was conveniently held in the hand. 



1917 April 1. 



