8o THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
and premolars, some of which had fallen out after death, 
were much worn. The food of the Hailing man was 
rough in nature, and he had suffered severely from dental 
disease. It was possible to estimate the size of his palate. 
It was rather shorter and wider than is common in 
modern Englishmen, An unexpected feature of a primi- 
tive jaw is the position of the third molar or wisdom 
tooth. It springs, as may be seen from fig. 31, not from 
the body of the jaw, but from the root of the ascending 
branch of the mandible, indicating that there was in- 
sufficient growth in the jaw to provide accommodation 
for the last tooth to come into its proper position. As 
regards the dimensions of the teeth, such of them as have 
been preserved, there is no point in size or form which 
differentiates them from the teeth of modern British 
people. The criticism may be made that such a skull 
is of no intrinsic interest because it shows no new 
or primitive feature. On the contrary, the discovery 
is of the greatest interest ; it shows how steadfastly 
human characters are transmitted from generation to 
generation. If we accept the degree of antiquity I 
have presumed — twenty-five thousand years — and allow 
forty generations to each thousand years, then we see 
that racial characters can be transmitted for a thousand 
generations, and still retain their essential features almost 
unchanged. 
Mention has been made already of the broken condition 
of the bones of the skull. The bones of the skeleton, in 
spite of the greatest care, could not be reconstructed with 
absolute accuracy. The shafts of the long bones, which 
are always dense and compact in structure, were preserved, 
but the spongy texture at their extremities had become 
reduced to dust. The thigh bones were fairly complete. 
Their total length was approximately 435 mm. Applying 
the formula used by Professor Pearson for calculating 
the stature of the individual from the length of the thigh 
bone, we estimate the height of the Hailing man at 
1630 mm. (5 feet 4 inches) — somewhat under medium 
height. His collar bones were also short, 130 mm., but 
