Cleveland County herald., 1920-11-25
TO SEARCH FOR
 MISSING LINK
Great Expedition Will Explore Re- mote Sections of Asia for Most
 Primitive Human Remains.
GREATEST EVER ORGANIZED,
China and Mongolia Expected to Yield Up Treasures in Anthropol- ogy and chaeoIogy-chinese
 Superstition Big Drawback.

-'S
 New York-To search for the most primitive human remains, the miss ing link" between man and the apes, will be the object of a great expedi- tion to be sent out by the American Museum of Natural History in coop eration with the American Asiatic as- sociation and Asia Magazine. The ex- petition will be the greatest of it's kind which has ever been organized by any institution in the world and will work for five years with large party of scientists in various remote regions of central Asia. It will be un- der the direction and leadership of MT. Roy Chapman Andrews, Associate Curator of Mammals in the American Museum of Natural History, who for the last ten years has been carrying on geological explorations in various parts of the Far East. The expedition will be financed by fund of $250,000, which is being provided by the Amer ican Museum of Natural History, the American Asiatic association and Asia Magazine, and the private subscrip- tions of Mrs. Willard Straight, Messrs. J. P. Morgan, George F. Baker, Childs Prick, W. A. Hartman and Mir. and Mrs. Charles L. Bernheimer.
 When in the year 1891, a Dutch army surgeon, Eugene Dubois, while excavating for fossils in central Java, discovered near Trinil part of a skull, two molar teeth and thigh bone, he had unearthed one of the most per picking conundrums in the study of human ancestry. Were the remains those of an extremely early type of prehuman manlike animal? If so, this apeman must have lived approx imately five hundred thousand years ago. This momentous discovery has been supplemented by that of other in- disputably human remains of which the most ancient, found In southern Germany, is the jaw of the so-called Heidelberg man who may be two hun dred and fifty thousand years old.
 With the exception of the Java spec imen, all fossil human fragments have DCtil dloNONCICd III uIOpc VI Nevertheless, the leading scientists of the day believe that Asia was the early home of the human race and that whatever light may be thrown upon the origin of man will come from the great central Asian plateau.
 Appeals to Imagination.
 The subject is one that makes a universal appeal to the imagination. The causes that led to mans evolu- tion from the apes, how that evolu- tion was first accomplished, what primitive man looked like and how he lived-these are all subjects upon which there is much theory, but as yet very litle fact.
 Leaving about the first of next Feb ruary, headquarters for the expedition will be established in Picking. The first year will be devoted to studies in paleOntology and zoology in China :; the second year the work will be car ried into Mongolia and a geologist will be added to the field staff; the third, fourth and fifth years archeologists and anthropologists will be sent out which with the zoologists and pale ontologists will carry on work in vari- ous part of Asia.
 The importance of this region long has been recognized, but no system atic study on large scale ever has been attempted, and there is no sim liar area of the inhabited surface of the earth about which so little is known. Whether or not human re- mains are found it will yield rich col lections in all branches of science.
 The material will be exhibited in the proposed Hall of Asiatic Life in the American Museum of Natural History, which 1t is hoped the city will add to the Museum buildings in the near ftl- ture. At the present time if one wishes seriously to study Asiatic 1o- ology one must go to the British Mu- scum of London. It is hoped that this expedition will bring to New York the greatest natural history collections which the world has ever seen and will make New York the center of Asatic scientific activity.
 One of the reasons why so little is known of the fossils of China and interior Asia is that material of this sort is of considerable value to the Chinese. Fossils are supposed to have wonderful medicinal qualities. They are known as dragons bones" and whenever fossil yielding locality has been found, it is carefully concealed. Nevertheless during the last three years Dr. J. G. Anderson, Mining Ad- wiser to the Chinese Republic, has been carrying on investigations on be- half of Swedish institutions and has made some remarkable discoveries. pr. Anderson is practically the first sci enlist who has ever collected fossils personally in China.
 We know almost as little about some of the living natives of Asia as about the fossil history of the country. Long before the Chinese arrived. China was inhabited by aboriginal tribes. which were pushed south and west just as the Indians were driven westward AA A