The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-04-27

who have just gone to look for the remains Of prim-
tive man in central Asia.
Lemuria, the lost continent to the east Of Africa,
was probably the region where some accident of
time brought mans ancestor down from the nut
laden trees and babe him "work for a living"
From that center he would pass easily to Asia
and Africa, and he would reach Europe by the
route which would bring the Babylonian mer-
chants ages a~fterward.
r. 1. Pocock writes INTERESTINGLY about the Rho
desian skull in comparison with other prehistoric
skulls and in connection with the Missing Link
IN Conquest (London). He says, among other
things:
I'm an article on mans descent, published in
February, 1920, I laid all the stress I could on the
importance of mans foot, pointing out that it diff
fers essentially from that of the apes in having the
great toe unopposable to the others and bound
closely to them so that the foot is functionally
perfect as may be for swift bipedal running in the
erect position. This modification of the foot Is
accompanied by long, strong, straight legs, a back
followed above the foins and a head poised on a
vertical neck. In the apes the head is not poised
In that way, the back Is not followed, the legs
are short, weak, and bent at the knees, and the
foot, instead Of being formed for running, is Of
the climbing type, the great toe being opposable
to the others and freely movable.
But there are other differences present in the
skull and teeth. In existing men the brain case
is capacious and highly arched from the brows
backwards, the ridges over the brows are absent
or comparatively small the face is small, the
jaws protrude but little or not at all, and the chin
projects; the palate is short, wide, curved and
followed above, the teeth are all in contact. and
the CANNES are short, so that the jaw is capable
of moving from side to side, like a cows, during
mastication. In the apes, on the other hand, the
brain-case is comparatively small and but little
arched from the broWs backwards, the brow
ridges are massive, the jaws are large and pro-
jecting, and the chin recedes; the palate is long,
narrow, straight-sided and fatter above: the ca
nine teeth are long, and the jaws are incapable
of moving sideways, mastication being effected
by upward movement of the lower jaw. There
is, however, one point connected with those diff
ferences which I wish to impress upon you. Elk
listing races differ from each other considerably in
the size and shape of the brain-case, the develop
ment of the brow-ridges, the projection Of the
jaws, the size of the teeth, and the shape of the
palate; but, so far as l am aware, they do not Diff
fer appreciably, if at all, in the structure of the
spine, of the legs and Of the feet, the parts sub
servient to exclusively bipedal progression in the
upright attitude.
-. Now the so-called missing link should be an
: animal so partaking Of the characters Of the ape
and man, so intermediate between the two, that
he could not be definitely assigned to either. Let
us now see If that claim can be made for any Of
the extinct forms Of man hitherto recorded. h
"A great many fossil men have been discovered
who do not differ in any essential respects from
men of the present day. These. show that our
= species Is or great antiquity and there is evil
dence that he inhabited Europe in mid Pleisto.
Gene times, and overlapped both in time and dis.
tribution, and no doubt exterminated another spe-
cies called Neanderthal Man from the locality
where his first remains were discovered in 1877
Since that year other skeletons have been nm.
earthed In Gibraltar, Croatia, and elsewhere. and
we have a tolerably good idea what these men
were like. Professor Huxley, in 1890, wrote Of
them: They were short of stature, but power
fully built, with strong, curiously curved thigh
bones, the lower end Of which are so fashioned
that they must have walked with a bend at the
knees. Their long, depressed skulls had very strong
brow-ridges; their lower jaws, of brutal depth and
solidity, sloped away from the teeth downwards
and Backwards To this we may add that there
is very little doubt that this man walked with a