﻿lxXXvi PEOCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 1910, 



suggested by the fact that many wild races of the present day, living 

 under much the same conditions and provided with much the same 

 appliances as the early Palaeolithic men of Europe, are furnished 

 with jaws which are as completely human as their dentition. That 

 the characters of the human jaw are a comparatively recent acquisi- 

 tion is suggested by their notorious variability; Portal l remarked, as 

 early as 1803, 'liny a point d'os dans lequel on trouve de plus 

 grandes differences que dans celui de la machoire inferieure,' and 

 with this citation Yirchow heads his paper on the Schipka jaw. 

 Ascending in the scale of time we next encounter the remains of 

 Neandertal man, representing the only race so far known to have 

 inhabited Europe during Mousterian days. While essentially human 

 it still presents numerous reminiscences of a simian ancestry. On 

 the one hand, we have a brain of unusual magnitude, a human 

 dentition, a human hand, and a human foot : on the other, a jaw not 

 yet provided with a chin, great frontal ridges, and an elevated 

 inion pointing to a brutal development of the muscles at the back 

 of the neck. 



Even at the present day the useless frontal torus still survives, 

 though in a more or less modified form ; sporadic instances occur 

 now and again among the civilized peoples of Europe, and it is a 

 constant characteristic of the male Australian aborigine. In the 

 search for simian vestiges these aborigines furnish indeed a most 

 fertile field — even the teeth ' throw back ' occasionally to an earlier 

 stage, and projecting canines may sometimes be met with which 

 recall the days when these were Man's fighting weapons. In the 

 example shown in fig. 10 (p. lxxxvii) the left canine projects 4 or 5 

 millimetres above the apex of the adjacent premolar : and, though 

 the incisors are missing, yet, judging from signs of wear, it must 

 have projected a corresponding amount beyond these also. 



How little we really know concerning the true course of human 

 evolution is impressed upon us by the paucity of the evidence which 

 we are able to adduce directly bearing on such speculations as we 

 have considered. Nature no doubt is a strict adherent to logic, but 

 she betrays a singular want of method in recording the steps of her 

 argument. Our chief hope of additional knowledge rests on the 

 chance of some fortunate discovery. The evolution of the elephant 

 was involved in obscurity up to a few years ago, yet all the while 

 its ancestral remains were lying exposed to view in the sands of the 



1 A. Portal, ' Cours d'Anatomie medicale' Paris, vol. i (1803) p. 190; 

 E. Virchow, ' Die Kiefer aus der Schipka-Hohle, &c.' Zeitschr. f. Ethn. vol. xiv 

 (1882) p. 277. 



