112 
have been 15,000 years ago, by another to 
have been 200,000 yearsago. The extreme 
antiquity of man’s appearance is no longer 
questioned, for in Europe his remains have 
been found associated with the bones of 
long extinct mammals. Further evidence 
of his great antiquity has been found in 
Africa, Asia and America, and only recently 
remains have been found in Java which 
have up to this time defied the best anato- 
mists of Europe to determine whether they 
belong to man or to some extinct ape. At 
any rate, they may be characterized as the 
most human-like of the apes so far known, 
or the most ape-like of any man yet dis- 
covered. But the real importance of the 
find in Java lies in the fact that we may hope 
for further discoveries which may throw 
light on man’s origin. There are still vast 
areas of Quaternary and Tertiary deposits 
in Asia, Africa and the islands of the Indian 
Ocean which await investigation, and it is 
not too much to hope that the next twenty- 
five years will see greater advances in our 
knowledge of man’s past history than we 
have seen in the last century. 
There is another problem awaiting solu- 
tion and it is, to a certain extent, bound up 
with the one just considered ; it is the old 
question, put in a new form, of the single 
or multiple origin of man—monogenism or 
polygenism. The facts as at present known 
are these: With the exception of the Java 
find and possibly one or two skulls found 
in Europe, man seems to be not only man, 
but go back as far into the past as we can, 
we find the several types of mankind al- 
ready existing as we know them to-day. 
On the most ancient of the Egyptian monu- 
ments we see depicted in a distinct manner 
the Egyptian Fellah, the Hadandowah and 
the Negro. If we consider the skulls which 
have been found in Europe and America 
along with bones of extinct mammals we 
have the long heads and the short heads— 
the types which appear to-day, and which 
SCIENCE. 
[N. 8.- Vou. VI. No. 134. 
furnish much of the basis of anthropological 
classification. Where or when did the lines 
begin to diverge? Was it due to a plural- 
ity in man’s ancestry or was it due to en- 
vironment? And why have the types of 
ancient times persisted down to the present 
day? We do not know yet why the skin 
of the negro is black, any more than we 
know why it remains black; nor do we 
know why his hair in cross section is long 
and narrow in shape, while that of the In- 
dian is circular. 
These questions and riddles are simply 
part and parcel of the great problem of her- 
edity, and if the study of anthropology does 
no more than solve that, it will amply 
have earned its title to recognition. A dis- 
tinguished English anthropologist declares 
that even to-day there may occasionally be 
noted the reappearance of physical types 
which existed in Europe contemporaneously 
with the cave-bear and the mammoth; 
while one of America’s foremost anatomists 
has declared that in the occasional appear- 
ance of a third trochanter we have a sur- 
vival of a structure which is an essential 
feature of the horse and the rhinoceres. 
When we know preciesly what heredity 
means, what can be inherited and what 
can not, then we may hope to know more of 
man’s origin and of his destiny. 
But the subjects of investigation are not 
only to enquire into the past; they include 
the men, the races of to-day. Surely the 
field is broad enough here, and no one who 
has explored even a corner of it doubts 
its importance and interest. But how 
much do we know of it? The physical 
history of the races of Europe has only 
been written within the last five years and 
it is far from complete. What do we know 
of the peoples of Africa or of the aborigines 
of America? Not nearly as much as we 
know of the mammals or of the butterflies 
of these countries. Yet in these peoples 
we have, if we would but look, a picture 
