July 3, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



19 



than were known when he enlisted. The 

 cause is the liberation of the race from the 

 bonds of superstition and ignorance and it 

 is a glorious one. The contest began before 

 the genus Jiomo sapiens came into existence. 

 Countless generations have served their 

 time, some well, some ill, and have passed 

 into oblivion, but their partial victories 

 have made you stronger and placed on you 

 a greater responsibility. Your intelligence 

 is greater, your judgment is sounder and 

 your effectiveness has been increased. 

 "Where the past has failed or only partially 

 succeeded, your success will be greater. 

 But the battlements of ignorance still 

 bristle with heavy-fire guns. Only a few of 

 the outposts of the enemy have been cap- 

 tured. It is for you to do and then like all 

 your predecessors to die. You stand to-day 

 within the firing-line. Go on courageously 

 and when eons of the future have become 

 the past, the superman, bom out of the 

 struggles of his predecessors, will demolish 

 the last citadel of ignorance and vice, and 

 firmly plant on the highest peak of the 

 mountain of knowledge the flag of human 

 progress and when the silken banner shall 

 unfold, there shall appear on it this legend : 

 Fro gloria omnium nationum et hominum lionore. 



VicTOK C. Vaughan 

 Department of Medicine, 

 Univeesitt op Michigan 



A FOSSIL HUMAN SKELETON FBOM GER- 

 MAN EAST AFBICA 

 At a meeting of the Gesellschaft naturfor- 

 schender Freunde in Berlin on March 17, 1914, 

 Dr. Hans Eeck made a preliminary report on 

 a discovery that is of special interest to 

 anthropologists. Dr. Eeck was attached to a 

 geological expedition that had been sent out 

 to survey a parallel running through the 

 northern end of German East Africa, as well 

 as to collect for the Geologic-Paleontologic 

 Institute of the University of Berlin and the 

 Paleontological Museum at Munich. 



The discovery in question was made in 

 Oldoway hollow or gorge on the eastern 

 margin of the Serengeti steppe. The Oldoway 

 gorge lays bare a series of tufaceous layers 

 that had been deposited in a freshwater lake. 

 Five deposits can be distinguished atratigraph- 

 ically as well as paleontologically. In the 

 lowest deposit fossil remains are rare, the chief 

 specimen being a part of a rhinoceros skele- 

 ton. The second deposit is rich in fossil 

 mammalian remains, including the human 

 skeleton. Remains of two types of fossil 

 elephant, both different from the living 

 Elephas africanus, were especially abundant; 

 the skull of a hippopotamus was also found in 

 deposit number two. Bones of the antelope 

 appear for the first time in the third deposit, 

 which also contains bones of the elephant. 

 Elephant remains are dominant in the fourth 

 deposit; fish bones are also abundant. The 

 fifth and latest of the deposits is the richest 

 of all in fossils. It is characterized by an 

 antelope and gazelle fauna similar to that 

 now living on the Serengeti steppe. In this 

 deposit Eeck 'found no elephant remains. 



The change in fauna represented by the 

 series corresponds to a change in climate. 

 The climate of the upper horizon was similar 

 to that of to-day; while the elephant, rhino- 

 ceros, hippopotamus, crocodile, and fish of the 

 lower horizons bespeak a damp woodland cli- 

 mate that was probably synchronous with the 

 Wiirm glacial epoch in Europe. 



The human skeleton, as has been said, came 

 from the next to the lowest horizon (No. 2). 

 It is not only in a good state of preservation, 

 but is likewise practically complete. The 

 skeleton was found some three or four meters 

 below the rim of the Oldoway gorge, which 

 here is about fifty meters deep. The skeleton 

 bore the same relation to the stratified bed as 

 did the other mammalian remains and was 

 dug out of the hard clay tuff with hammer 

 and chisel just as these were. In other words 

 the conditions of the find were such as to ex- 

 clude the possibility of an interment. The 

 human bones are therefore as old as the 

 deposit (No. 2). 



An attempt to determine the age of the 



