January 21, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



107 



semn, has described and figured various skel- 

 etal bones of the new armored dinosaur whose 

 remains are found in great numbers in the 

 Tendaguru dinosaur quarries of German East 

 Africa. He points out its marked differences 

 from Stegosaurus, compares it more slightly 

 with the European genera Omosaurus, Pola- 

 canthus, etc., and describes it as new under the 

 (unfortunately preoccupied) name of Kentro- 

 saurus. 



A handbook on Dinosaurs by Dr. W. D. Mat- 

 thew published by the American Museum of 

 ITatural History describes and illustrates the 

 principal exhibits in this museum and dis- 

 cusses their characteristics, and the place in 

 nature occupied by this extinct order of rep- 

 tiles. 



Mammals. — Progress in this branch of ver- 

 tebrate paleontology during the past year has 

 been mainly in continuance of researches, pre- 

 senting few salient points of interest. The 

 most important contributions of the year on 

 fossil mammals deal with the order Primates, 

 and there should be mentioned first of all those 

 relating to primitive man. In our own lan- 

 guage three books have appeared during the 

 year which treat of prehistoric human remains ; 

 of these the foremost place must be accorded 

 to Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn's " Men 

 of the Old Stone Age," which presents in accu- 

 rate and very interesting style the latest re- 

 sults of scientific research upon the environ- 

 ment, habits and art on paleolithic man. 

 "The Antiquity of Man," by Mr. Arthur 

 Keith, sets forth with admirable lucidity and 

 literary style the somewhat extreme views of 

 its distinguished author upon the great anti- 

 quity of the modern types of man and his early 

 divergence from the remaining primate stems. 

 The third voliune, " Prehistoric Man and His 

 Story," by Dr. Scott Elliott, includes excellent 

 photographs of the remarkable series of statu- 

 ettes representing primitive and ancestral 

 types of man executed under direction of Pro- 

 fessor Eutot. It can not be said to rank with 

 the two first-mentioned books in authority, the 



Tertiary paleontology and American archeol- 

 ogy being especially weak. 



A most important contribution has been 

 added by Gerritt S. Miller-^ to the controversy 

 that has raged around the famous Piltdown 

 skull. Dr. Miller analyzes with care the evi- 

 dence for and against the association of the 

 skull fragments with the lower jaw and com- 

 pares the latter with a large series of chim- 

 panzee jaws in the IsTational Museum. He 

 comes to the conclusion that the jaw is in 

 every respect within the limits of individual 

 variation of the chimpanzees, and displays no 

 distinctively human characters, while the skull 

 fragments display in every particular the char- 

 acters of the genus Homo. Not only is there 

 an entire lack of blending of these two dis- 

 tinct types of skull, but in such parts as 

 should show coordinated characters and ad- 

 justment of one to the other, such conformity 

 is wholly lacking. 



In the present reviewer's opinion [W. D. M.] 

 Dr. Miller's argument is convincing and 

 irrefutable; the jaw belonged to a chimpanzee 

 and the skull to a species of man comparable 

 with that represented by the Heidelberg jaw. 

 It is hardly to be expected, however, that this 

 conclusion will be readily accepted by the 

 European writers, who have with but few ex- 

 ceptions committed themselves more or less 

 deeply to the opposite view. 



It is quite true, as Professor Boule has ob- 

 served, that nature affords many instances of 

 unexpected combinations of different types, 

 and no one need be surprised to see an ape-like 

 dentition combined with a man-like brain-case. 

 Indeed, Elliott Smith has adduced excellent 

 reasons why we may well expect to find such a 

 combination. But it is necessary here to dis- 

 tinguish between the concepts of resemblance 

 and identity. The Piltdown jaw is not simply 

 a jaw similar in adaptive specialization to that 

 of an ape, it is a jaw identical with that of 

 the chimpanzee in every particular. The skull 

 is not merely similar in brain-case to that of 

 man, it is the skuU of Homo in every partic- 

 ular. Eor such a combination as this, with its 



25 SmitJison. Misc. Coll., Vol. 65, No. 12. 



