The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-05-15
Sir Ray Lankester, 67 Today, Famous Son Of Famous Father.

Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, the dis tinguished English zooIOgfst and evo- 1utfonfSt. was born in London sixty seven years ago today. Like that greatest Of evolut1onistS, Charles Oar win. Sir Ray had a distinguished father and his youth was spent in an atmosphere of sch holarshfp and sci- entiffc interests The elder Lankester was celebrated physician, lecturer at medical colleges, editor of the author Of several medical and socio- logical works. The centenary of the birth of Dr. Edwin Lankester was observed by English physicians last month
 Darwfnss theories as 10 the origin of species were beginning to win the, general acceptance or the scientific world, but were bitterly opposed by theoIogians, when Edwin Ray Ian kester was a student at Downing Church, Oxford. and the young man early became a doughty defender of Darwinistn. The patient research which had marked Darwin's develop ment of his epochal theory was re- fIected in the first book of his dis phalaspidian Fishes. which was published when the author was only twenty-three years old.
 Sir Ray has spent many years in a thorough study of the brains of man and his 1apeIike progenitors,' and ed missing 1ink's between man and monkey. so far as size Of brain is concerned
 Using cubic centimeters as units,'' said the scientist, we find that good average European brain is of the bulk of 1,50o units. The gorilla has slightly larger brain than the cni1npanzee or the ourang. One of good medium bulk measures 500 units, or a third of that of the well developed European.
 The size of European human brains also varies within very large limits, about third more and a third less; that is, from about 1000 units to nearly 2,0oO- The skull of the fos- sil man from Pleistocene( possibly PHocene) gravels in Java had, ca pacity of only 800 units. If we sup pose that some specimens of the gor- fila may have brain third larger than the average we get 670 units for the biggest gorilla brain, and we similarly assume that the primitive human race of Java gravel varied to the same extent-viz.s by a third more or less around 300 as the nor maEwe find that the greatest size of the gorilla brain overlaps the smallest of the Javan Pithecanthro- pus, while the largest of that race would overlap not only the Austra- Han but the smaller sized brains of Europeans
 Hence, if we accept, as we must, the fact that the brain of man and the man1ike apes naturally varies greatly in volume in different indi- vidua1s, there is no absolute gap in fegard to size between the higher races of man and the apes. The diff ference is bridged over by the lower races of man and the exceptional in- dfviduals of apes.
 s1The convo1utions of the brain of the higher apes have been minutely compared with those of mans brain. Two sets of convolutions agree very closely, but are less extensive in the apes. The convolutions of the brain of lower races of men have not been fully studied, but the brain of a Hottentot woman has been care fully described and illustrated, show ing less complexity than is usual in European man and making a distinct approach in this respect to the apes, but still possessing in fair proportion the convolutions characteristic of the human brain