The age-herald., 1900-11-04
IN SEARCH OF
 APE-L|KE MAN Again Scientists Will Try to Find the Missing Link in the
 WiIdS of Java.


 swer to the critics of the money class. He never desired to be rated with the Four Hundred but the inheritance of large wealth has forced him into social plane from which neither argument nor willing seclusion can release him. But he has de- cided to do something of consequence for the human race.
 To prove that the moneyed class Is not wholly indifferent to the advancement of science and the progress Of thought or idly intolerant regarding the great prop lens effecting the human race, the young master of Biltmore manor house mas se- lected a brilliant Yale student, David J. Walters, to lead an expedition into lar away Java to settle. so far as human re- search may do so, the most important prob lem that now confounds the biologists or the world-namely Does the actual spec ies of ape-like men that the logic of bioS- eny( worked, out by Lamarck, Darwin Huxley and HaeckeD demonstrates to have lived at remote period of the earth history, still exist?
 Ernest Haeckel, the distinguished pro- lessor at the University of Jena, main- tains that this soullness, voiceless, hYe- fingered, tailless creature is still extant amid the jungles and tangled forests Of Northeastern Java and he last spring an- nounced his intention to set out in quest of this only link yet missing to complete the wonderful chadn in the theory of mans decent, beginning with the monera, or or ganisms without organs; advancing to the amaeba, thence by seven stages to the shul-less vertebrates.
 The specimen of the Pithecanthropi, or ape-like men, that MT Vanderbilt hopes to find, marks the twenty-first stage of ad- vancement from the single-celled monera or protoplasmic germ. It is the one link that must be found, alive or in the fossil state, to completely demonstrate the new, wonderful and startling philosophy of hu- man existence that eliminates a God, and to clinch what must be admitted to be the most brilliant product of the human brain the theory of development. Whether 1t is called Darwinism or Haeckelsm Is Of little importance. The doctrine of evolu- tion owes dts own development to several stages, but to Lamarck, Goethe, Huxley and Darwin in particular. It has made warfare of science, and has commanded more serious thought by the brightest minds than any theme of the nineteenth century
 Into this arena, in which the death grap pie between religion and advanced science will be fought out MT. George w. Vandar- bilt casts his wealth and American en- thusiasm with a promptitude that is char acteristic of his grandfather, the old Commodore" The finding of the North Pole, the determination of the Nile basin. the genesis of the polyglotic languages of the Sargasso Sea, are as nothing com pared to a final determine tion regarding the truth of the Biblical theory of crea- ton. Upon the result of successful hunt for the Pitheconthropus depends the faith of 43O.0OO,000 Christian people who cling to the beliefs of their ancestors.
 Mir Vanderbilt is believer He imbibed a devout reverence for the Christian faith from his devoted mother, and, however, great his respect for science, he never has wavered in his acceptance of the Adamic theory of creation.
 MT. George w. Vanderbilt wants the truth. He is like the editor of newspaper in quest of facts. He has adopted the practical and natural method of doing what Prof Haeckel wants done. He has sent out a party himself. MT. David J. Walters is now on his way to Japan where a special steamer will be hired and proper ly equipped for this expedition to the is- land of Java. It is hoped to render the projected voyage of Prof. Haeckel unnec- essary. MT. Vanderbilt expects to find the Pithecanthropus at once if he be where Dr. Haeckel believes him.
 If the ape-like man is not in Java MT. Vanderbilt's agent will search the forests and the swampy savannas until he Is con- yinced of that fact. The Pithecanthropus must be found or dismissed from the field of contemporaneous existence.
 Although it is possible to discourse with a great subject of chimpanzinity regard ing the subject of apes and man-like apes, Mir Vanderbilts agent will readily dis tinguish the Pithecanthropus from all other members of the Simian race. He cannot be deceived because he is looking for the ape-like man; not the man-like ape! The difference is radical, a lit tie thought will make clear.
 Man began to be a foreshawdowed pos sibility when the primary form of ape ap- peared. Our semi-ape ancestors if Dar- Win and Hacckel be right, possessed only a faint resemblance to the still living short-footed apes. The tertiary period probably produced them. They "originat- ed perhaps out of marsupials, or pouched animals (of which the kangeroo remains). ''The certain proof that genuine apes are the direct descendants of semi-apes is found in their comparative anatomy" declares Haeckel.
 Then came the tailed apes. but the mar row-nosed species Is all that interests the student of man. The tailed apes origin ated" out of semi-apes by the transforma- tion of the jaw and the changing of their claws into nails. "The certain proof of this step is found in the comparative anatomy and ontogeny of apes and man." again asserts Haeckel.
 Most nearly akin to man are the large. tailess, narrow-nosed apes, the orang of Asia and the chimpanzee of West Africa. They originated during the miocene period, in all likelihood and developed by the loss of their tails, the partial loss of their hairy covering and by excessive develop ment of that part of the brain just above the facial portion of the skull. There do not exist direct human ancestors among man-like apes of the present day, but Hackel proves by the comparatively an- atomy of man-like apes and of man that they vertainly did exist among the un- known extinct human apes of the micoene era,
 But toward none of these does the pre- sent search tend. MT. Vanderbilt seeks the ape who has ceased to be an ape and has become a man!
 To kill such an animal would be mur- der-the same sacrifice of semi-human life indulged in by explorers of the 6tan- ley and Bahcr character!
 MT. Walters is instructed to seek the