13<> KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



apes, a great gap separates the true apes from the half apes or lemurs, and these 

 in turn have affinities with the most aberrant and puzzling forms, like the aye- 

 aye and tarsier, with its extraordinary long tarsal segment, so that we have the 

 affinities of man brought by quick passage, as it were, to the lower levels of the 

 mammalia ; and in this connection it is interesting to observe that in the lower 

 eocene, both in Europe and America, lemuroid forms have been discovered. 



In recalling the low characters of ancient man, it is not necessary to mention 

 here the oft-repeated examples of the Neanderthal and Engis skulls of Perigord, 

 the jaws of La Naulette, Moulin Quignon, and a host of other examples now 

 classic in the literature of the subject, and the equally remarkable remains in this 

 country, such as the platycnemic tibiae of Michigan, and the remarkable skul^ 

 from that region, with the temporal ridges nearly approximating. Suffice it to 

 say that, just as we find the remains of man at lower levels, so do we find his 

 characters in the main departing not only from the higher race of to-day, but in 

 the same proportion approaching a type which is ape-like. If we examine the 

 races to-day we find the savage groups presenting a number of low characters, 

 such as a deficiency of the sharp ridge at the base of the nostrils, differences in 

 the proportion of of the pelvis, in some the foramen magnum farther back ; a 

 certam percentage of perforated humeri, prognathism, and other characters, all 

 of which are an approach to the apes, and a departure from higher man. No 

 one savage race possesses all these characters, but each race has some of them. 

 If we look for these characters among the higher races, we meet with them 

 rarely. Thus, the percentage of perforated humeri in the white race is very low. 

 Of fifty-two humeri examined by Wyman, only two were perforated. In the 

 present Indian and Negro, this peculiarity occurs more frequently, and in the 

 prehistoric races of America is very common. Wyman found in a Florida mound 

 thirty-one per cent perforated, while Gillman estimated the percentage of perfor- 

 ated humeri in a Michigan mound as at least fifty per cent. He has furthermore 

 pointed out the interesting fact that these low humeri are associated with suc- 

 cessively flattened tibiae. 



If now we note successively the percentage of low characters revealed in 

 the higher races of to-day, in existing savages, in the races, both savage and 

 civilized, at the dawn of history, and finally, in those savage races which alone 

 existed in neolithic and down through to paleolithic times, we find this percentage 

 becoming greater as we descend. So marked is the increase that one may almost 

 predict that, when still more remote horizons yield their human remains, an 

 enormous percentage, if not at all, will be found with low, receding foreheads ; 

 heavy frontal crests; rounding of the base of the nostrils; a nearer approximation 

 of the temporal ridges; a greater posterior position of the foramen magnum ; the ab- 

 sence of a projecting chin ; ape-like proportions of the molar teeth ; perforated hu- 

 meri; quadrumanous proportions of the pelvis ; flattened and saber-like tibia ; con- 

 spicuous roughnesses and ridges for the attachments of muscles, and other low 

 osteological characters, all pointing in one direction. Of the soft parts, the amount 

 of hairiness and the racial character of the hair, the persistence of ape-like muscles, 



