The Savannah morning news., 1903-08-02

Of a period from which we already
possess genuine human skulls found In
other localities.
At present our estimates place 1t
loosely from the end of the tertiary
period to the earliest glacial period.
And certain European finds of un-
doubted human bones take US back as
far as that glacial period.
Should it be ascertained that pithe-
canthropus and the human remains OF
Europe's glacial time are contempt
raneous, a great field of conjecture and
research will have been opened. IL
would appear then that the pithecan-
thropii of Java were simply isolated
survivors
Should it be proved, on the contrary.
that the Javanese deposits date oack
into the tertiary period. say the ter
tiary piocene, thus placing the begin
ming of human man into Eastern Asia,
we would have the problem before US
of how the finished product, man,
could have wandered and spread so
soon thereafter from the Sunda Straits
to France on one side and TO South
America on the other.
Meantime men are digging busily in
Java for a complete or measuraply
con plete skeleton of pithecanthropus.
Chance holds the key. We must wait
in patience.
In Solenhofen, which furnished the
world that magnificent reptile-biru-
the missing link between lizard ana
bird-sixteen years elapsed between
the first find and the second; and since
then twenty-five years have passed
without a third find.
But we have the one great fact A
bright light has been shed on the cna1n
from the gibbon to man. TO WORK
backward from the gibbon Is not 50
dlfIicult
n HaIf-MOnkey Ancestor.
Recent anatomical proofs show that
the line of descent from the lower
mammals to the monkey passes
through a half-monkey that still sur
vives-the so-called "forest-ghost or
"ghost-maki," which inhabits the sum
da Islands to-day.
Fossil relatives of this animal nave
been found in North America in the
deposits from the first third of terti-
ary time. In those days the line or
man was represented by these mann
mails. much lower in order than the
present true monkeys. And from the
half-monkey the descent probably is
to be traced to the still lower insec-
tiveous mammals, such as the good,
honest porcupines, which certainly
90 not appear dl liob Sl6hb W NC I'll
cestors."
And ancestors Of the porcupines,
away back in the cretaceous or chalk
periods, lead again to the marsupial
animals such as the kangaroo. At last
we find the duck-bill laying eggs to-
day like a lizard.
And this takes us back to the rep
tiles and amphibians. The amphibian
I assembled from the fish through the
lizard-fish. From the fish, the thread
leads back to the realm of the things
| without backbones, the invertebrates.
| And that takes us back to the SINGLE
| cell or uni-cell, the first creature.
Men complain sometimes that the
glow of romance pales with the adj
vance Of science.
feel that science enriches the
world with romance more and moro
in the best sense.
Ever more glowing ever more won-
derful does the picture become. Ever
more nightly knowledge arouses us,
takes US in a flight through vast time,
bears us through fairy-like places.
And when the spirit of knowledge
has made seers of us, we perceive be-
hind the splintered, fossil bones of
Java the same great power that thrills
the devout reader of the story OF
Eden behind pithecanthropus erectus
Of Java there towers, half unveiled,
the greatest OF all mysteries, the mys-
terry of the being of man, OF the APP
pearance of the first conscious brain;
the mystery of ourselves.