288 The American Naturalist. [March, 
in Indo-China, possibly of higher antiquity than the same age in 
Europe, though there has, as yet, been no synchronism established 
between them. It is now more than 2,000 years since the Khmers, of 
whom the Cambodians pretend to be the descendants, constructed 
temples and palaces which were of sufficient dignity to have belonged 
to the antiquity of Egypt. These are all in ruins, yet the voyager can 
still see enough to show them in their gigantic and barbaric splendor, 
The temple of Ang-Kor-What, of which Mr. Jammes has made an 
attempt at restoration, is not less than 3,900 feet in the length of its 
principal façade, by one hundred and sixty or one hundred and 
seventy feet in height. It was built of cut stone and is ornamented 
everywhere with superb sculptures and bas-reliefs. To-day these im- 
posing ruins are invaded by a tropical vegetation that has covered and - 
suffocated them in its embrace. On the ruined and fallen towers, or 
in the earth about them, enormous trees now grow, and sometimes 
portions of the wall, windows or doors are sustained and supported by 
the roots of the great banian trees. 
Anthropology demonstrates that the men of the epoch of polished 
stone were the ancestors of’the constructors of the great temples in 
the Orient, though they were then in full possession of iron, silver and 
gold. ow many centuries of this rude civilization was required to 
traverse the space between the polished stone age when these shell- 
heaps were made, and in which its objects and implements were lost or 
deposited, until the brilliant period of the temple of Ang-Kor-What ? 
The anthropological side of this subject has not yet been studied. 
We are in ignorance of the facts, and are without sufficient knowledge 
to be able to even approximate this great progression. Mr. Jammes 
found several skeletons in his excavations of these shell-heaps. He 
calls the people the race of Som-rong-sen, after the name of the 
principal shell-heap. The people of the race he remarked as being of 
large proportion, great height, and vigor. Some of the skeletons 
were, as he reports, more than two metres in height. What seemed 
to astonish him more than anything else was the thickness of the skull, 
which sometimes attained twelve millemetres in the occipital region. 
The men of these shell-heaps buried their dead in their habitations. 
The care that they took in the position of the skeletons is a slight 
evidence of their belief in a future life. Near the ‘bodies were fre- - 
quently placed various implements of their industry. Pieces of pottery 
were found filled with the débris of food. 
This civilization belongs to a prehistoric race, and corresponds with 
a mixture of the polished stone and bronze ages in western Europe. 









