452 PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS. 



however, it surpasses the maximum of anthropoids by 18°, being, never- 

 theless, but 9° below the Spy skull No. 2, and about 12° below the usual 

 angle in recent human skulls. 



The apes of the New World are in this respect much nearer to man 

 than even the anthropoids. In an Ateles beelzebuth, for example, I find 

 the angle of inclination of the nuchal surface 11°, in a Cebus uiger 7° 

 greater than the maximum of anthropoids. Indeed many other things 

 in their cranial formation are more similar to that of man. The platyr-, 

 rhines stand, however, so far from man in other respects that they are 

 excluded from any closer comparison. In any case there is in this 



Pig. 2.— Profile curves of the skulls of Pithecanthropus erectus (Pe), a Papuanian, the Spyman (I), 

 Cunningham's microcephalous Joe, Hylobates leuciscus (HI), Anthropopithecus troglodytes (At), 

 and Semnopithecus maurus (Sm). Glabella (Gl), Opisthion (Op). Linea nuchas superior (Jn). Linea 

 nuchse inferior (Lni). (Pigure from Transactions of Royal Dublin Society, February, 1896.) 



feature not an accidental but an essential difference between the 

 anthropoid skull of Java and those of the anthropoid apes. 



In man the strong forward inclination of the nuchal portion of the 

 occipital bone is considered to have a relation to the upright position. 

 I can not see why it should not be interpreted in the same way in the 

 fossil skull under consideration. 



By the removal of the siliceous matter from the interior of the skull- 

 cap, which was at first partially and afterwards quite completely 

 effected, it was shown that the sulcus transversus of the occipital bone, 

 which, as place of attachment for the tentorium, marks the boundary 

 between the cerebrum and the cerebellum, lies at about the same rela- 

 tive distance from the superior curved line of the bone as it does in the 



