L. Manouvrier — Pithecanthropus erectus. 217 



lateral flattening which gives to the ensemble of the cranium a 

 pyriform aspect when seen from above. The posterior parietal 

 region is flat from above downward to a degree no less remark- 

 able. The occipital crest is very thick. The temporal crests 

 do not come very near to the sagittal suture, but they are pro- 

 longed downward and backward in such a way as to form a 

 parietal super-mastoid crest which goes almost to form a junc- 

 tion with the occipital crest. I at first pointed out with some 

 reserve this simian character after a photogravure in Mr. 

 Dubois' memoir ; but I am now no longer in doubt as to its 

 reality. Finally the foramen magnum and the auditory meatus, 

 which are missing, appear to have been situated a little farther 

 back than in the human species. 



As has been said above, human crania very inferior for their 

 race sometimes approach more or less in volume and form to 

 anthropoid crania. Professor Turner* has also been able to 

 show many exceptional human skulls that approach to a 

 remarkable extent the skull from Java with reference to capac- 

 ity, etc. But, if we suppose that collections of crania richer 

 than those that we possess would permit us to find upon 

 human crania all the characters of inferiority noticed on the 

 Pithecanthropus and to a degree as pronounced, the skull from 

 Java would present none the less this peculiarity : that it 

 brings together a group of characters all of them the limit for 

 the human race. It is the union of these characters that it 

 behooves us to consider, all the more so that the coexistence 

 of certain of these characters on the same skull is particularly 

 interesting. Thus normal human crania can have an inferior 

 capacity of 1000 cubic centimeters, but then these are pigmy 

 crania, and they come up again with respect to the general 

 form because they contain a brain relatively voluminous with 

 reference to the stature ; they have no right, so to speak, to 

 that enormous frontal visor which is, among all races, the lot 

 of individuals with powerful skeleton and brain relatively 

 small, or of averred microcephalous individuals whose develop- 

 ment of skeleton approaches the medium. 



Besides, let us admit that a non-pathological human skull 

 may be found in which are united all the " caracteres limites " 

 of the skull from Java ; that would prove nothing against the 

 hypothesis of Mr. Dubois, for such a skull would be always a 

 very rare exception in any human race whatsoever, whereas, 

 according to all probability, the one skull found in Java is not 

 a rare exception in its race. And then this race is of the 

 Pleistocene epoch, which of itself would give no ground for 

 astonishment were its one known specimen morphologically 



* Jour, of Anat. and Physiol., vol. xxiv, 424. 



