412 W. D. MATTHEW PROGRESS IX VERTEBRATE PALEOXTOLOGY 



Yet it appears probable that through crossing and intermixture some of 

 the blood of one or more of these extinct species of man still survives 

 here and there among our own race and may yet be recognizable when 

 the application of mendelism to systematic osteology and paleontology 

 is more fully understood and aj^plied, and also when our collections of 

 the remains of fossil man are so extensive as to admit of such applica- 

 tions. Whatever may be the prospects of getting anywhere along this 

 line, it is quite clearly demonstrated by these recent discoveries that the 

 problem of the ancestry of our race — of the evolution of man — is in 

 reality a much more complex and difficult one than had been assumed 

 either by the exponents or opponents of evolution. It is not one missing 

 link that we have to find, but many. Each of the discoveries I have cited 

 is a ''missino' link^' : but we can not be satisfied with merelv answerino- 

 the challenge of the ignorant, and each discovery serves as a spur to 

 further search. 



A remarkable recent discovery is that of a true anthropoid primate in 

 the Lower Pliocene of this country. While the single upper molar which 

 Osborn has named H esperopithecus^^ does not prove the precise affinities 

 of the animal, there is no reasonable doubt in the minds of those who 

 have studied the original specimen that it is one of the higher Anthro- 

 23oidea. The discovery of such a type was not wholly unexpected, as the 

 writer and Mr. H. C. Cook, in describing the Snake Creek fauna in 1909, 

 pointed out that certain badly preserved teeth might perhaps be anthro- 

 poid, and that the character of the associated fauna made such a dis- 

 covery reasonably joossible. Nevertheless it was not considered likely, as 

 the formation had been diligently and repeatedly prospected in subse- 

 quent years without success. 



ForjEiGx Researches axd Discoveries, miscellaxeous Coxtributioxs 



Paleontological research in other parts of the world is much less ad- 

 vanced than in Xorth America and Europe, but, in addition to the few 

 discoveries already mentioned, several other important results of explora- 

 tion have already been secured. In the West Indies a more or less sys- 

 tematic search for fossil vertebrates has been made l)y the American 

 ^Museum, the ^luseum of Comparative Zoology and the National Mu- 

 ^eum,^^ and considerable well preserved material secured from the Pleis- 



33 H. F. Osborn: (1022.1 Amer. Mus. Xovitates. no. ^7. 



W. K. Gregory and Milo Hellman : (1923.) Amer. Mus. Xovitates, no. 't'S. 

 3MV. D. Matthew: (1019.) Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. vol. Iviii. pp. 161-181. 

 H. E. Anthony: (1918.1 Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., n. s.. vol. ii. pp. :i;31-4;i5, 

 pis. Iv-lxxiv. 



G. S. Miller: (1910.) Smiths. Miscell. Coll., vol. (JG. no. 12: 1922, idem, vol. 74. 

 no. 3. 



