The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-01-10
TO SEEK THE MISSING LINK.
TITO HUNTS FOR PITHEC4NTHRO-
 PUS REMAINS IN .JATA.


 George Vanderbilt to Pay the Expense
 of an American Party--A German Ex-
 petition Also Gotng-Dr. CHI Ex-
 plains the Objects of the Search and
 What 1t is Hoped to Find.
 Two expeditions are now being or ganized to hunt in Java for remains of the Pithecanthropus, better known as the missing link, that half-man, half ape creature long sought to fill the gap in the Darwinian chain. George Van derbilt is to defray the expenses of an American party, which will be led by David J. Walters of New Haven, Conn. A German party is being organized by Professor Ernst Haeckel, the eminent naturalist of Jena- Dr. Theodore N Gill, of the Smithsonian Institution, gives the following information con- cerning the aims and hopes of the pro- motors of these expeditions:
 'Of course these expeditions hope to find only the fossil remains of Pithecan-
 
 make their researches in Java, because 1t was there that Dr. Eugene Dubois @ Dutch army surgeon and paleontologist, recently found partial remains of what many naturalists believe to have been a creature intermediate between ape and man. Dubois made the discovery on the bank of the Bangawan, near Trinil, in the central part of the island. The remains lay in a bed of rock thirteen or fifteen yards below the vegetable soil. They consisted of the upper portion of a skull, two molar teeth and a thigh bone. From the size of the skull it has been judged that the brain of the orea- ture must have been greater than that of any ape yet found and too small for any human being, that is in proportion to the size of the body as indicated by the other remains The teeth have been pronounced similar to those of man in that they are hollow at the crown, yet like those of the ape in that they diverge at the roots. The thigh bone indicates that the creature walked in an upright position-in the posture of man. The name pithecanthropus, which, from it's Greek derivation, means ape man, was first used in 1868 by Professor Haeckel The full techni- cal name now is Pithecanthropus erec- tus in other words, an ape man stand ing erect. Dubois found the pithecan- thropus bones in earth deposits repre- Henting the tertiary age or geologic pe- riod. This fact indicates that the ami mal lived and died during that time, hundreds of thousands of years ago"
 "How long was probably required for the complete change from ape to man?"
 "A couple of hundred thousand years was sufficient time, I should think. St is not probable that the civilization of which we learn from the earliest rec prds could have been attained until af- ter man had been on earth more than one hundred thousand years. The his toric period goes back probably five or six thousand years from the present"
 Was this change from ape to man probably taking place at various parts of the earth at the same timer
 Tt probably occurred in one limited area. It was so gradual that 1t would have been impossible for one living during this time to determine which creature was ape and which was man. It was simply the result of an innate tendency to vary in particular direc- tion a tendency which manifested it. self dim this single area. Conditions were favorable to the development. Advantages were furnished to the being with new attributes. Then there was the result that the race thus propaga- ted rapidly spread over the neighboring lands in a comparatively short time, ge- ologically speaking.
 Ma will thPSp ages there was an ape, like the present chimpanzee, which exhibited superior intelligence and learned to fight with sticks or clubs rather than with tooth and nail. This new faculty he trans mitted to his descendants, who devel- oped shorter arms, more efficient for the new mode of warfare. Those hay ing the shorter arms, therefore, sur vived and multiplied in the struggle for life. The canine teeth were less used and on this account became smaller and were reduced to level with the others The gaps between the teeth gradually closed as the jaws, used less for fight ing, grew smaller. The muscles of the jaws. likewise, became reduced and the ridges which held them to the skull be- came less prominent As this superior intelligence QeVelOpeu, lle Drdln anu US cavity grew larger. As the arms grew shorter the legs became more and more convenient for locomotion and thus was the erect posture developed. The ape ancestor, of course, had no tail; hence that appendage was not part of the Pithecanthropus in any stage of his de- Nelopment."
 "Do you believe Java to be the proper l place to seek pithecanthropus? If you were to set out to find him would you | go there frst?" | s'Were to go out and look for Pithe- | canthropus my only guide would be the | Knowledge of where probable specimens | had been already found. I would go in | their neighborhood.
 ttThis area in which man was evolved | from the ape believe to have been h. dia and I include Java under the gene ral head of India. In the late tertiary of India there existed genus ape to which the chimpanzee belonged It is very possible that man was evolved from his stock. Although mans near est relatives now living are the African 'chimpanzee and gorilla, that old ape of | India was probably nearer the line of ! our ancestry than any of the African | Species. The latter were in a geologic