LIFE IN THE PAST 187 
Whether we have to-day any traces of the steps by 
which man arose from the animal beneath him is 
vigorously disputed. Eminent scientists will be found 
on both sides of this question. 
Many scientific writers to-day take it for granted 
that one form, discovered in Java, while it may not 
be in the absolutely direct line, must be very close 
indeed to the line of ascent toward man out of the 
apelike forms. A scientist by the name of DuBois, 
working in the banks of a stream in south-central 
Java, found a thigh bone which seemed to him ex- 
ceedingly human in its general character and yet not 
absolutely like the human thigh bone. The oncom- 
ing of the rainy season raised the water in the river 
so that DuBois could not continue his search. Re- 
turning a year later, and digging back deeper into 
this bank, he found a skull cap and two molar teeth 
which seemed to him to belong to the thigh bone, al- 
though they lay several yards farther back, but at 
the same level in the bank. 
When these bones were subsequently presented to a 
meeting of European scientists by DuBois, he claimed 
to have found the ‘‘missing link” for which there was 
so eager a demand. Some of the best anatomists of 
the meeting, notably Virchow, laughed at his claim 
and said that the skull cap was simply that of a hu- 
man idiot, and could be duplicated in any large asylum. 
