Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-01
LIVE MISSING LINK
Female Specimen Said to Have
Been Found.
PlTHECANT HROPUS ERECTUS
Opinions Of Scientists on the Austral-
ian Animal
HAIRY MEN-HOMO CAUDATUS
Some Pseudo Links and What Prom
inent Evolutionists Consider the
Real Thing Should Look Like.
PlTHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS
HAIRY MEN-HOMO CAUDATUS

fCopyr1gnr, 1906 by cohu E.lireth Watkirs)
The recent cable from Melbourne stating
that a real live missing link'-or per-
haps we should say missing linkess." for
1t is she-has been bagged by Prof
klaatsch at Port Darwin, Northern Aus
tralia. has been noted by government an
thrOpologists. The Giscoverer is evidently
Prof. Hermann Klaatsch. the German an
thropoogist OF Heidelberg who has come
into International notice within the past
few years. The only descriptive details as
to the creature received here are that she
is the missing link between man and ape"
and that she has feet like hands" Prof
Klaatsch is said to have taken plaster
casts and photographs of this individual,
intermediate between the anthropoid ape
and Homo sapiens.
If the creature really proves to be the
missing link. Prof. Klaatsch is assured i'm
mortal fame and will become more cele-
brated than If he had discovered the north
pole. squared the circle found the phil
osophers stone or perpetual motion. Sci
entists have been in search of the missing
link ever since Darwin launched his theory
of evolution. They have not, however Sc
rfously hoped to capture a live specimen
II has been generally agreed among them
that when the creature is found 1t will be
seen only in the form of fossilized bones
DIR. Theodore Gill, the eminent BIOLOGIST of
the Smithsonian. takes this view. When
questioned on the subject. he denied the
possibility of a live missing links ever
being discovered
The evolution from ape to man is not
now in progress, said he. The struggle
for existence has crowded out all inter
mediate links between ape and man. The
pithecanthropus. or missing link which
originally occupied the same ground with
early man. did not have the intelligence to
Will ~, .
gle Tor existence. But the ape proper con-
tinued TO live in the regions hostile to man.
Had the ape occupied territory necessary
or favorable to man it would have long
been out of existence"
However there are some biologists who
believe that missing link might now ap-
pear on earth as a result of the phenome-
non of reversion, or turning back to a
primitive ancestral stock. This phenome-
non Is encountered IN breeding experiments
with both animals and plants. At any rate
the region OF Prof. klaatsch's researches
Is regarded fertile field for discover
ing very primitive human beings Port Oar
win lies at the northernmost edge of that
wild central strip of largely unexplored
Australia known as northern territory Its
black heart Is now penetrated by a tele-
graph line stretching from Adelaide on the
south coast, up to Port Darwin. If the
creature was discovered at the latter port
II doubtless had drifted up from the wild
lands below. The aborigines living here
are among the lowest order of human be-
ings. They build permanent dwellings
but live only In novels Their sole dress is
single garment, when they wear any
thing at all. Their hatchets are of stone
and their spears and axes of hard wood
Some OF them practice cannibalism They
nave no religion beyond fear of a giant be-
heveG 10 nave been sleeping for ages and
expected to some day awake and eat up the
world.
Government Collecting Missing Link
Casts.
The National Museum will endeayor to
obtain facsimiles OF Prof. Klaatsch's casts
unless his alleged discovery proves to be
altogether the hoax of some yellow Jour
nalist of Melbourne.
The museum has been collecting casts of
the skulls or creatures most nearly an
proach hing the hypothetical missing link One
OF these, In fact. Is accepted by many an
thropologists as being the remains of an
actual missing link This Is skull found
about ten years ago by DR.. Eugene Dubois
Dutch army surgeon and paleontologist
who dug 1t out of the bank of the river
Bangawan. near Trinil, in the central part
OF Java. Only the top portion of the skull
was preserved. but sufficient remained to in
dictate to Prof. o. c. Marsh and other an
thropologists that the original skull capacity
OF the creature was about two-thirds that
OF the average man. Yet II was consider
ably greater than that of the highest type
o. ape ever known. The arching of the top
of the head Is much higher and more
rounded than that of any ape While this
skull has the narrowness and smoothness of
mans II yet has the apes ridges of bone
('supraorbital ridges') which hold in place
the strong muscles of a jaw used in combat.
Along with the skull fragment were two
molar teeth and a whole thigh bone. The
teeth are man-like at the crown but ape
like at the roots. The thigh bone proves
by its shape that the animal walked In an