364 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 
explained on the assumption that they are, as in other animals, 
hereditary survivals. 
Wiedersheim has pointed out more than one hundred 
and eighty rudimentary or vestigial structures belonging to 
the human body, which indicate an evolutionary relation- 
ship with lower vertebrates. It would require a considerable 
treatise to present the discoveries in reference to man’s 
organization, as Wiedersheim has done in his Structure of 
Man. As passing illustrations of the nature of some of these 
suggestive things bearing on the question of man’s origin 
may be mentioned: the strange grasping power of the newly 
born human infant, retained for a short time, and enabling 
the babe to sustain its weight; the presence of a tail and 
rudimentary tail muscles; of rudimentary ear muscles; of 
gill-clefts, etc. 
Antiquity of Man.—The geological history of man is 
imperfectly known, although sporadic explorations have 
already accumulated an interesting series, especially as 
regards the shape and capacity of skulls. The remains of 
early quarternary man have been unearthed in various parts 
of Europe, and the probable existence of man in the tertiary 
period is generally admitted. As Osborn says, “Virtually 
three links have been found in the chain of human ancestry.” 
The most primitive pre-human species is represented by 
portions of the skull and of the leg bones found in Java by 
the Dutch surgeon Dubois in the year 1890. These remains 
were found in tertiary deposits, and were baptized under the 
name of Pithecanthropus erectus. The structural position of 
this fossil is between the chimpanzee, the highest of anthro- 
poid apes, and the ‘‘ Neanderthal man.” With characteristic 
scientific caution Osborn says that the Pithecanthropus 
“belongs in the line of none of the existing anthropoid apes, 
and falls very near, but not directly, in the line of human 
ancestry.” 
