Evening star., 1939-12-31

Va AAOAAo uP q WI cAAOAo AoOc
al tramway opened last summer.
loomed so large in text books and
lecture courses as the find of the
Java "ape-man" in 1892.
We arrived in Batavia on a Sum
day. Under the palm trees the
thermometer registered SO degrees
and the air was such as to drench
our tropical outfits with perspira-
ton.
A main center of the scientific
life is at Bandoeng. A three-hour
train ride took us there. 1t was
fortunate that DR.. G. H. r. Won Koe-
nigsWald, who is devoting his life to
the study of human origins in Java
had offered to guide us.
One week later we left Bandoeng
by train and entered magnificent
tropical scenery. There were end
less rows of rice fields. Villages
clustered along the foot Of volca-
noes, whose graceful cones were cut
off by thick cloud banks. And then
suddenly there appeared wide
plain with rubber and sugar-cane
plantations and towns with large
busy-looking factories.
On the following day our party
proceeded by car almost within a
hundred yards of the famous local1
ity where the aQcient Java man was
found. The place seemed pastoral,
with a river flowing past undulat-
ing fields. brown villagers standing
on the banks and washing their
garments. All the school children
had turned up, ragged-looking but
gayly gesticulating.
In few minutes they spread be-
fore us masses Of fossil bones.
Flight From Disaster.
The formation with which we as
sociate this primitive creature is an
old river sand, laid down by the
ancestral stream at a time when
volcanoes were erupting vast guam
titles of ashes and rocks. A catas-
trophe, fierce and sudden, had de-
Scended.
Amid victims was the ape man.
walking with bent gait, his eyes
searching from under heavy eye
brow ridges, a type that had barely
crossed the threshold Of humanity.
He was trapped in company with
the wild life. On the banks OF the
river his skeleton sank into the
mud, slowly being broken up by
flood waters until only the heavy
skull was embedded in the rock. The
time when he lived cannot be stated
In an exact number of years; it was
what geologists call the middle por-
ton of the Pleistocene period.
Some years ago, about 10 miles
from the site we were visiting, a
trained native collector found an
other skull and lower jaw. With
this material it became possible to
compare the Java man with Peking
man, of which five skulls have been
unearthed in China, and to prove
that they were akin, that they were
of the same stock and of about
equal age.
Considering that the sites of Pek-
ing man and Java man are more
than 5000 miles apart, 1t is evident
that early man, like modern man,
was great traveller.
We concerned ourselves next with
a more recent inhabitant of Java,
the "Solo-Man," who lived perhaps
100000 years later than the Java
man. He is represented by II skulls
found only a little downstream from
the Java man site. We went there
by boat.
The area, a fiat, elevated ground
where cattle now Craze. was pitted
by the diggings of previous excava-
tors.
The skulls show that these men
had comparatively big brains, al
though they were rather chinless
These records of human ancestry
would by themselves suffice to put
Java In the forefront Of anthropol-
ogic research. But the island also
contains proofs of still greater
age of mankind. Three years ago
geologists surveying the hill near
the prosperous port OF Soerabaya
found an almost complete infant
skull which beats the age record of
all human remains in Asia.
Nature in Unrest.
The setting of this discovery,
which was the last objective of our
trip, is charged with all the dra-
matte splendor OF lands where the
earth's underground forces are still
at work. From the shimmering sea
coast rise volcanoes, lost in the pale
haze of noon, plumes Of smoke
drifting from their craters. It is q
strange country. You may wake up
one morning to find your breakfast
table powdered with volcanic dust
and as you drive to the office your
car may at any moment be hit by
one of those projectiles that Merapi
volcano sends out from time to time
over a range of six miles. This land
scape, dotted with cinder cones and
lava flows, is at the fringe Of one of
the most fertile coastal plains OF
Asia.
On foot we approached the site
where, in a shallow excavation, was
found the precious fossil to which
science has given the name Homo
NRnd iaLA A~% ar,eie - Wo cnSg1H rae fhA