Fehri-ary 15, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



193 



PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTrS. 



Professsor Mar.sh has contributed to the 

 February number of the American Journal 

 of Science an account illustrated by plates of 

 the discovery by Dubois described in Sci- 

 ence (January 11) by Professor Brinton. 

 A •m-iter in Xature (January 24) under the 

 initials R. L. (Professor Lankaster) holds 

 that the remains arc human, the skull be- 

 ing that of a microcephalous idiot. Profes- 

 sor Marsh writes : — 



" The brief review here given of the main 

 facts relating to this discoveiy, together 

 with the figures reproduced from the mem- 

 oir, will afford the reailer some idea of the 

 importance of this latest addition to the 

 known allies of prinueval man, if not to his 

 direct ancestry. "Whatever light future re- 

 searches may throw upon the afhnities of 

 this new form that left its remains in the 

 volcanic deposits of Java during later Ter- 

 tiary time, there can be no doubt that the 

 discoverj- itself is an event equal in interest 

 to that of the Neanderthal skull. 



"The man of the Xeander valley remained 

 without honor, even in his own country, for 

 more than a (juarter of a centurj-, and was 

 still doubted and reviled when his kinsmen, 

 the men of Spy, came to his defense, and a 

 new chapter was added to the early history 

 of the human race. The ape-man of Java 

 comes to light at a more fortunate time, 

 when zeal for exploration is so great that 

 the discoven- of additional remains may be 

 exi>ected at no distant daj'. That still 

 other intermediate forms will eventually be 

 brought to light no one familiar with the 

 subject can doubt. Nearlj- twenty years 

 ago, the WTiter of the present review placed 

 on record his belief that such missing links 

 existed, and should l)i' looked for in the 

 caves and later Tertiary of Africa, which he 

 then regarded as the most promising field 

 for exploration in the Old World. The 

 first announcement, however, has come 

 from the East, where large anthropoid apes 



also survive, and where their ancestore were 

 doubtless entombed under circumstances 

 favorable to early discovery. The tropical 

 regions of both Asia and Africa still oiler 

 most inviting fields to ambitious explorei's." 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 new YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



The section of CTCologj' and Mineralogy 

 of the New York Academy of Sciences met 

 on Monday evening, Januarj^ 21, and lis- 

 tened to a paper by Prof. R. S. Woodward, 

 of Columbia College, on the Condition of 

 the Interior of the Earth, of which the fol- 

 lowing is an abstract. The two envelo^its 

 of the earth, the atmosphere and the ocean 

 are important factors in the problem of the 

 interior, and yet we know les.s of the condi- 

 tion of the outer atmosphere than of the 

 inner earth. The atmosphere's shape we 

 can calculate, with some approximation to 

 the truth, as an oblate spheroid, whose polar 

 radius is 5.4 times the earth's radius, and 

 whose equatorial radius is 7.6 times the lat- 

 ter. This shape is determined by centri- 

 fugal force and gravity. Its bulk is 310 

 times that of the earth, but its mass is onlj^ 

 one-millionth that of the latter. If we 

 speak of the latter as 6642 x 10'* tons we 

 can get some conception of the mass of the 

 atmosphere, and of its extreme tenuity in 

 the outer portions. 



Our inferences regarding the interior of 

 the earth rest chiefly upon four facts, viz. 



1. Its shape and size, which are known 

 with great accuracy. 



2. Its surface density, 2.6. 



3. Its mean density. 5.58, which is prob- 

 ably accurate within two units in the 

 second decimal place. 



4. The precession ratio -^ , in which C is 

 the moment of inertia of the earth with re- 

 spect to the polar axis, and A is the moment 

 of inertia with respect to an equatorial axis. 



These facts limit the distribiitioii of the 

 earth's mass. The densitj' of the mass must 



