The Prehistoric Find at Piltdown. 913 
clusion that on the basis of the evidence furnished by the Piltdown Fossils 
and by the characters of all the Men, Apes, and Monkeys now known, a 
single individual cannot be supposed to have carried the jaw and the skull 
represented. 
Within the last year Prof. Ramstrom! of Upsala has published figures and 
illustrations which give strong support to the same view. I would like to put 
before you, some of the reasons which led me at the first to doubt the con- 
clusions drawn, and shall also give you some of the evidence which Mr Miller 
and Prof. Ramstrom have presented. 
The crux of the matter lies, indeed, in the association together in one 
individual of the skull remains and of the jaw, for two features of the 
reconstruction hang upon this :— | 
1. The face, which is entirely hypothetical, except for the nasal bones, 
has been modelled so as to fit the jaw fragment. | 
2. The jaw conversely has been restored so as to fit the skull, we. the 
width between the condyles has been restored so as to fit the skull, 
i.e. the width between the condyles of the reconstructed jaw has 
been determined by the width between the glenoid surfaces of the 
skull, which is known from the actual fragments. 
Characters of the Human Jaw.—The mandible of every human skull, 
prehistoric or recent, presents distinct and clear characters, by which it 
can be distinguished from the jaw of an anthropoid. 
The ramus, and the coronoid process and condyle have considerable 
resemblance, though in details of structure differences may be present. 
The condyle, for example, is usually wide and narrow, the pit, on the 
anterior surface of its base, is less distinct than in man, the groove for 
the mylohyoid nerve lies behind the inferior dental foramen, and not in 
line with it, and the mylohyoid ridge is less distinct or even absent in the 
ape. All these characters have considerable value, but they do not possess 
the same degrees of constancy or definiteness that are shown in the front 
part of the mandible. zn | 
The human jaw presents in front a rounded arch, the opposite sides 
converge towards the symphysis in a curve whose character is influenced 
by the width between the rami. The lines of the molar teeth of the opposite 
sides, similarly converge to the median plane. The curve of the tooth row 
becomes more pronounced in the region of the premolar teeth. The area 
occupied by the teeth is less in man than in the chimpanzee, and the alveolar 
border is shorter, not only because the human teeth are on the whole smaller 
1 Bull, Geol. Inst. Upsala, vol. xvi. 
