Chapter V: Introduction (5)

To this I can only reply that the exclamation would be most just and would have my own entire sympathy, if it were only relevant. But, it is not I who seek to base Man's dignity upon his great toe, or insinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a hippocampus minor. On the contrary, I have done my best to sweep away this vanity. I have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves; and I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a psychical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.[32] At the same time, no one is more strongly convinced than I am of the vastness of the gulf between civilized man and the brutes; or is more certain that whether _from_ them or not, he is assuredly not _of_ them. No one is less disposed to think lightly of the present dignity, or despairingly of the future hopes, of the only consciously intelligent denizen of this world.

We are indeed told by those who assume authority in these matters, that the two sets of opinions are incompatible, and that the belief in the unity of origin of man and brutes involves the brutalization and degradation of the former. But is this really so? Could not a sensible child confute, by obvious arguments, the shallow rhetoricians who would force this conclusion upon us? Is it, indeed, true, that the Poet, or the Philosopher, or the Artist whose genius is the glory of his age, is degraded from his high estate by the undoubted historical probability, not to say certainty, that he is the direct descendant of some naked and bestial savage, whose intelligence was just sufficient to make him a little more cunning than the Fox, and by so much more dangerous than the Tiger? Or is he bound to howl and grovel on all fours because of the wholly unquestionable fact, that he was once an egg, which no ordinary power of discrimination could distinguish from that of a Dog? Or is the philanthropist or the saint to give up his endeavours to lead a noble life, because the simplest study of man's nature reveals, at its foundations, all the selfish passions and fierce appetites of the merest quadruped? Is mother-love vile because a hen shows it, or fidelity base because dogs possess it?

The common sense of the mass of mankind will answer these questions without a moment's hesitation. Healthy humanity, finding itself hard pressed to escape from real sin and degradation, will leave the brooding over speculative pollution to the cynics and the "righteous overmuch" who, disagreeing in everything else, unite in blind insensibility to the nobleness of the visible world, and in inability to appreciate the grandeur of the place Man occupies therein.

Nay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from the blinding influences of traditional prejudice, will find in the lowly stock whence man has sprung, the best evidence of the splendour of his capacities; and will discern in his long progress through the Past, a reasonable ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler Future.

They will remember that in comparing civilized man with the animal world, one is as the Alpine traveller, who sees the mountains soaring into the sky and can hardly discern where the deep shadowed crags and roseate peaks end, and where the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the awe-struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he refuses to believe the geologist, who tells him that these glorious masses are, after all, the hardened mud of primeval seas, or the cooled slag of subterranean furnaces--of one substance with the dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory.

But the geologist is right; and due reflection on his teachings, instead of diminishing our reverence and our wonder, adds all the force of intellectual sublimity to the mere æsthetic intuition of the uninstructed beholder.

And after passion and prejudice have died away, the same result will attend the teachings of the naturalist respecting that great Alps and Andes of the living world--Man. Our reverence for the nobility of manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge, that Man is, in substance and in structure, one with the brutes; for, he alone possesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible and rational speech, whereby, in the secular period of his existence, he has slowly accumulated and organized the experience which is almost wholly lost with the cessation of every individual life in other animals; so that now he stands raised upon it as on a mountain top, far above the level of his humble fellows, and transfigured from his grosser nature by reflecting, here and there, a ray from the infinite source of truth.

_A succinct History of the Controversy respecting the
Cerebral Structure of Man and the Apes_

Up to the year 1857 all anatomists of authority, who had occupied themselves with the cerebral structure of the Apes--Cuvier, Tiedemann, Sandifort, Vrolik, Isidore G. St. Hilaire, Schroeder van der Kolk, Gratiolet--were agreed that the brain of the Apes possesses a POSTERIOR LOBE.

Tiedemann, in 1825, figured and acknowledged in the text of his "Icones," the existence of the POSTERIOR CORNU of the lateral ventricle in the Apes, not only under the title of "Scrobiculus parvus loco cornu posterioris"--a fact which has been paraded--but as "cornu posterius" (Icones, p. 54), a circumstance which has been, as sedulously, kept in the back ground.

Cuvier (Lecons, T. iii. p. 103) says, "the anterior or lateral ventricles possess a digital cavity [posterior cornu] only in Man and the Apes.... Its presence depends on that of the posterior lobes."

Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, and Gratiolet, had also figured and described the posterior cornu in various Apes. As to the HIPPOCAMPUS MINOR Tiedemann had erroneously asserted its absence in the Apes; but Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik had pointed out the existence of what they considered a rudimentary one in the Chimpanzee, and Gratiolet had expressly affirmed its existence in these animals. Such was the state of our information on these subjects in the year 1856.

In the year 1857, however, Professor Owen, either in ignorance of these well-known facts or else unjustifiably suppressing them, submitted to the Linnæan Society a paper "On the Characters, Principles of Division, and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia," which was printed in the Society's Journal, and contains the following passage:--"In Man, the brain presents an ascensive step in development, higher and more strongly marked than that by which the preceding subclass was distinguished from the one below it. Not only do the cerebral hemispheres overlap the olfactory lobes and cerebellum, but they extend in advance of the one and further back than the other. The posterior development is so marked, that anatomists have assigned to that part the character of a third lobe; _it is peculiar to the genus Homo, and equally peculiar is the posterior horn of the lateral ventricle and the 'hippocampus minor,' which characterise the hind lobe of each hemisphere_."--_Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society_, Vol. ii. p. 19.

As the essay in which this passage stands had no less ambitious an aim than the remodelling of the classification of the Mammalia, its author might be supposed to have written under a sense of peculiar responsibility, and to have tested, with especial care, the statements he ventured to promulgate. And even if this be expecting too much, hastiness, or want of opportunity for due deliberation, cannot now be pleaded in extenuation of any shortcomings; for the propositions cited were repeated two years afterwards in the Reade Lecture, delivered before so grave a body as the University of Cambridge, in 1859.

When the assertions, which I have italicised in the above extract, first came under my notice, I was not a little astonished at so flat a contradiction of the doctrines current among well-informed anatomists; but, not unnaturally imagining that the deliberate statements of a responsible person must have some foundation in fact, I deemed it my duty to investigate the subject anew before the time at which it would be my business to lecture thereupon came round. The result of my inquiries was to prove that Mr. Owen's three assertions, that "the third lobe, the posterior horn of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus minor," are "peculiar to the genus _Homo_," are contrary to the plainest facts. I communicated this conclusion to the students of my class; and then, having no desire to embark in a controversy which could not redound to the honour of British science, whatever its issue, I turned to more congenial occupations.

The time speedily arrived, however, when a persistence in this reticence would have involved me in an unworthy paltering with truth.

At the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in 1860, Professor Owen repeated these assertions in my presence, and, of course, I immediately gave them a direct and unqualified contradiction, pledging myself to justify that unusual procedure elsewhere. I redeemed that pledge by publishing, in the January number of the _Natural History Review_ for 1861, an article wherein the truth of the three following propositions was fully demonstrated (l. c. p. 71):--

"1. That the third lobe is neither peculiar to, nor
characteristic of, man seeing that it exists in all the
higher quadrumana."

"2. That the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle is
neither peculiar to, nor characteristic of, man, inasmuch
as it also exists in the higher quadrumana."

"3. That the _hippocampus minor_ is neither peculiar to,
nor characteristic of, man, as it is found in certain of
the higher quadrumana."

Furthermore, this paper contains the following paragraph (p. 76):

"And lastly, Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik (op. cit.
p. 271), though they particularly note that 'the lateral
ventricle is distinguished from that of Man by the very
defective proportions of the posterior cornu, wherein only
a stripe is visible as an indication of the hippocampus
minor;' yet the Figure 4, in their second Plate, shows
that this posterior cornu is a perfectly distinct and
unmistakeable structure, quite as large as it often is in
Man. It is the more remarkable that Professor Owen should
have overlooked the explicit statement and figure of these
authors, as it is quite obvious, on comparison of the
figures, that his woodcut of the brain of a Chimpanzee (l.
c. p. 19) is a reduced copy of the second figure of
Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik's first Plate.

"As M. Gratiolet (l. c. p. 18), however, is careful to
remark, 'unfortunately the brain which they have taken as
a model was greatly altered (profondément affaissé),
whence the general form of the brain is given in these
plates in a manner which is altogether incorrect.' Indeed,
it is perfectly obvious, from a comparison of a section of
the skull of the Chimpanzee with these figures, that such
is the case; and it is greatly to be regretted that so
inadequate a figure should have been taken as a typical
representation of the Chimpanzee's brain."

From this time forth, the untenability of his position might have been as apparent to Professor Owen as it was to every one else; but, so far from retracting the grave errors into which he had fallen, Professor Owen has persisted in and reiterated them; first, in a lecture delivered before the Royal Institution on the 19th of March, 1861, which is admitted to have been accurately reproduced in the "Athenæum" for the 23rd of the same month, in a letter addressed by Professor Owen to that journal on the 30th of March. The "Athenæum" report was accompanied by a diagram purporting to represent a Gorilla's brain, but in reality so extraordinary a misrepresentation, that Professor Owen substantially, though not explicitly, withdraws it in the letter in question. In amending this error, however, Professor Owen fell into another of much graver import, as his communication concludes with the following paragraph: "For the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the cerebellum in the highest Apes, reference should be made to the figure of the undissected brain of the Chimpanzee in my 'Reade's Lecture on the Classification, &c. of the Mammalia,' p. 25, fig. 7, 8vo. 1859."

It would not be credible, if it were not unfortunately true, that this figure, to which the trusting public is referred, without a word of qualification, "for the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the cerebellum in the highest Apes," is exactly that unacknowledged copy of Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik's figure whose utter inaccuracy had been pointed out years before by Gratiolet, and had been brought to Professor Owen's knowledge by myself in the passage of my article in the "Natural History Review" above quoted.

I drew public attention to this circumstance again in my reply to Professor Owen, published in the "Athenæum" for April 13th, 1861; but the exploded figure was reproduced once more by Professor Owen, without the slightest allusion to its inaccuracy, in the "Annals of Natural History" for June 1861!

This proved too much for the patience of the original authors of the figure, Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, who, in a note addressed to the Academy of Amsterdam, of which they were members, declared themselves to be, though decided opponents of all forms of the doctrine of progressive development, above all things, lovers of truth: and that, therefore, at whatever risk of seeming to lend support to views which they disliked, they felt it their duty to take the first opportunity of publicly repudiating Professor Owen's misuse of their authority.

In this note they frankly admitted the justice of the criticisms of M. Gratiolet, quoted above, and they illustrated, by new and careful figures, the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor of the Orang. Furthermore, having demonstrated the parts, at one of the sittings of the Academy, they add, "la présence des parties contestées y a été universellement reconnue par les anatomistes présents à la séance. Le seul doute qui soit resté se rapporte au pes Hippocampi minor.... A l'état frais l'indice du petit pied d'Hippocampe était plus prononcé que maintenant."

Professor Owen repeated his erroneous assertions at the meeting of the British Association in 1861, and again, without any obvious necessity, and without adducing a single new fact or new argument, or being able in any way to meet the crushing evidence from original dissections of numerous Apes' brains, which had in the meanwhile been brought forward by Prof. Rolleston,[33] F.R.S., Mr. Marshall,[34] F.R.S., Mr. Flower,[35] Mr. Turner,[36] and myself,[37] revived the subject at the Cambridge meeting of the same body in 1862. Not content with the tolerably vigorous repudiation which these unprecedented proceedings met with in Section D, Professor Owen sanctioned the publication of a version of his own statements, accompanied by a strange misrepresentation of mine (as may be seen by comparison of the "Times" report of the discussion), in the "Medical Times" for October 11th, 1862. I subjoin the conclusion of my reply in the same journal for October 25th.

"If this were a question of opinion, or a question of
interpretation of parts or of terms,--were it even a
question of observation in which the testimony of my own
senses alone was pitted against that of another person, I
should adopt a very different tone in discussing this
matter. I should, in all humility, admit the likelihood of
having myself erred in judgment, failed in knowledge, or
been blinded by prejudice.

"But no one pretends now, that the controversy is one of
terms or of opinions. Novel and devoid of authority as
some of Professor Owen's proposed definitions may have
been, they might be accepted without changing the great
features of the case. Hence, though special investigations
into these matters have been undertaken during the last
two years by Dr. Allen Thomson, by Dr. Rolleston, by Mr.
Marshall, and by Mr. Flower, all, as you are aware,
anatomists of repute in this country, and by Professors
Schroeder Van der Kolk, and Vrolik (whom Professor Owen
incautiously tried to press into his own service) on the
Continent, all these able and conscientious observers have
with one accord testified to the accuracy of my
statements, and to the utter baselessness of the
assertions of Professor Owen. Even the venerable Rudolph
Wagner, whom no man will accuse of progressionist
proclivities, has raised his voice on the same side; while
not a single anatomist, great or small, has supported
Professor Owen.

"Now, I do not mean to suggest that scientific differences
should be settled by universal suffrage, but I do conceive
that solid proofs must be met by something more than empty
and unsupported assertions. Yet during the two years
through which this preposterous controversy has dragged
its weary length, Professor Owen has not ventured to
bring forward a single preparation in support of his
often-repeated assertions.

"The case stands thus, therefore:--Not only are the
statements made by me in consonance with the doctrines of
the best older authorities, and with those of all recent
investigators, but I am quite ready to demonstrate them on
the first monkey that comes to hand; while Professor
Owen's assertions are not only in diametrical opposition
to both old and new authorities, but he has not produced,
and, I will add, cannot produce, a single preparation
which justifies them."

I now leave this subject, for the present.--For the credit of my calling I should be glad to be, hereafter, for ever silent upon it. But, unfortunately, this is a matter upon which, after all that has occurred, no mistake or confusion of terms is possible--and in affirming that the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor exist in certain Apes, I am stating either that which is true, or that which I must know to be false. The question has thus become one of personal veracity. For myself, I will accept no other issue than this, grave as it is, to the present controversy.

FOOTNOTES:

[25] It will be understood that, in the preceding Essay, I have selected for notice from the vast mass of papers which have been written upon the man-like Apes, only those which seem to me to be of special moment.

[26] We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with the brain of the Gorilla, and therefore, in discussing cerebral characters, I shall take that of the Chimpanzee as my highest term among the Apes.

[27] "More than once," says Peter Camper, "have I met with more than six lumbar vertebræ in man.... Once I found thirteen ribs and four lumbar vertebræ." Fallopius noted thirteen pair of ribs and only four lumbar vertebræ; and Eustachius once found eleven dorsal vertebræ and six lumbar vertebræ.--"OEuvres de Pierre Camper," T. 1, p. 42. As Tyson states, his "Pygmie" had thirteen pair of ribs and five lumbar vertebræ. The question of the curves of the spinal column in the Apes requires further investigation.

[28] It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes contain as little as 27 ounces of water, which would give a capacity of about 46 cubic inches. The minimum capacity which I have assumed above, however, is based upon the valuable tables published by Professor R. Wagner in his "Vorstudien zu einer wissenschaftlichen Morphologie und Physiologie des menschlichen Gehirns." As the result of the careful weighing of more than 900 human brains, Professor Wagner states that one-half weighed between 1200 and 1400 grammes, and that about two-ninths, consisting for the most part of male brains, exceed 1400 grammes. The lightest brain of an adult male, with sound mental faculties, recorded by Wagner, weighed 1020 grammes. As a gramme equals 15.4 grains, and a cubic inch of water contains 252.4 grains, this is equivalent to 62 cubic inches of water; so that as brain is heavier than water, we are perfectly safe against erring on the side of diminution in taking this as the smallest capacity of any adult male human brain. The only adult male brain, weighing as little as 970 grammes, is that of an idiot; but the brain of an adult woman, against the soundness of whose faculties nothing appears, weighed as little as 907 grammes (55.3 cubic inches of water); and Reid gives an adult female brain of still smaller capacity. The heaviest brain (1872 grammes, or about 115 cubic inches) was, however, that of a woman; next to it comes the brain of Cuvier (1861 grammes), then Byron (1807 grammes), and then an insane person (1783 grammes). The lightest adult brain recorded (720 grammes) was that of an idiotic female. The brains of five children, four years old, weighed between 1275 and 992 grammes. So that it may be safely said, that an average European child of four years old has a brain twice as large as that of an adult Gorilla.

[29] In speaking of the foot of his "Pygmie," Tyson remarks, p. 13:--"But this part in the formation and in its function too, being liker a Hand than a Foot: for the distinguishing this sort of animals from others, I have thought whether it might not be reckoned and called rather Quadrumanus than Quadrupes, _i.e._ a four-handed rather than a four-footed animal."

As this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. Hilaire is clearly in error in ascribing the invention of the term "quadrumanous" to Buffon, though "bimanous" may belong to him. Tyson uses "Quadrumanus" in several places, as at p. 91.... "Our _Pygmie_ is no Man, nor yet the _common Ape_, but a sort of _Animal_ between both; and though a _Biped_, yet of the _Quadrumanus_-kind: though some _Men_ too have been observed to use their _Feet_ like _Hands_, as I have seen several."

[30] See the note at the end of this essay for a succinct history of the controversy to which allusion is here made.

[31] I say _help_ to furnish: for I by no means believe that it was any original difference of cerebral quality, or quantity, which caused that divergence between the human and the pithecoid stirpes, which has ended in the present enormous gulf between them. It is no doubt perfectly true, in a certain sense, that all difference of function is a result of difference of structure; or, in other words, of difference in the combination of the primary molecular forces of living substance; and, starting from this undeniable axiom, objectors occasionally, and with much seeming plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual chasm between the Ape and Man implies a corresponding structural chasm in the organs of the intellectual functions; so that, it is said, the non-discovery of such vast differences proves, not that they are absent, but that Science is incompetent to detect them. A very little consideration, however, will, I think, show the fallacy of this reasoning. Its validity hangs upon the assumption, that intellectual power depends altogether on the brain--whereas the brain is only one condition out of many on which intellectual manifestations depend; the others being, chiefly, the organs of the senses and the motor apparatuses, especially those which are concerned in prehension and in the production of articulate speech.

A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass and his inheritance of strong intellectual instincts, would be capable of few higher intellectual manifestations than an Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he were confined to the society of dumb associates. And yet there might not be the slightest discernible difference between his brain and that of a highly intelligent and cultivated person. The dumbness might be the result of a defective structure of the mouth, or of the tongue, or a mere defective innervation of these parts; or it might result from congenital deafness, caused by some minute defect of the internal ear, which only a careful anatomist could discover.

The argument, that because there is an immense difference between a Man's intelligence and an Ape's, therefore, there must be an equally immense difference between their brains, appears to me to be about as well based as the reasoning by which one should endeavour to prove that, because there is a "great gulf" between a watch that keeps accurate time and another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in the balance-wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a something so slight that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can discover it, may be the source of all the difference.

And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the Human from the Simian Stirps.

[32] It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor Owen's opinions in entire accordance with my own, that I cannot forbear from quoting a paragraph which appeared in his Essay "On the Characters, &c., of the Class Mammalia," in the "Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London" for 1857, but is unaccountably omitted in the "Reade Lecture" delivered before the University of Cambridge two years later, which is otherwise nearly a reprint of the paper in question. Prof. Owen writes:

"Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the
distinction between the psychical phenomena of a
Chimpanzee and of a Boschisman or of an Aztec, with
arrested brain growth, as being of a nature so essential
as to preclude a comparison between them, or as being
other than a difference of degree, I cannot shut my eyes
to the significance of that all-pervading similitude of
structure--every tooth, every bone, strictly
homologous--which makes the determination of the
difference between _Homo_ and _Pithecus_ the anatomist's
difficulty."

Surely it is a little singular that the "anatomist," who finds it "difficult" to "determine the difference" between _Homo_ and _Pithecus_, should yet range them on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes!

[33] On the Affinities of the Brain of the Orang. Nat. Hist. Review, April, 1861.

[34] On the Brain of a young Chimpanzee. Ibid., July, 1861.

[35] On the Posterior lobes of the Cerebrum of the Quadrumana. Philosophical Transactions, 1862.

[36] On the anatomical Relations of the Surfaces of the Tentorium to the Cerebrum and Cerebellum in Man and the lower Mammals. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, March, 1862.

[37] On the Brain of Ateles. Proceedings of Zoological Society, 1861.

III

ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.

I have endeavoured to show, in the preceding Essay, that the ANTHROPINI, or Man Family, form a very well defined group of the Primates, between which and the immediately following Family, the CATARHINI, there is, in the existing world, the same entire absence of any transitional form or connecting link, as between the CATARHINI and PLATYRHINI.

It is a commonly received doctrine, however, that the structural intervals between the various existing modifications of organic beings may be diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into account the long and varied succession of animals and plants which have preceded these now living and which are known to us only by their fossilized remains. How far this doctrine is well based, how far, on the other hand, as our knowledge at present stands, it is an overstatement of the real facts of the case, and an exaggeration of the conclusions fairly deducible from them, are points of grave importance, but into the discussion of which I do not, at present, propose to enter. It is enough that such a view of the relations of extinct to living beings has been propounded, to lead us to inquire, with anxiety, how far the recent discoveries of human remains in a fossil state bear out, or oppose, that view.

I shall confine myself, in discussing this question, to those fragmentary Human skulls from the caves of Engis in the valley of the Meuse, in Belgium, and of the Neanderthal near Düsseldorf, the geological relations of which have been examined with so much care by Sir Charles Lyell; upon whose high authority I shall take it for granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a contemporary of the Mammoth (_Elephas primigenius_) and of the woolly Rhinoceros (_Rhinocerus tichorhinus_), with the bones of which it was found associated; and that the Neanderthal skull is of great, though uncertain, antiquity. Whatever be the geological age of the latter skull, I conceive it is quite safe (on the ordinary principles of paleontological reasoning) to assume that the former takes us to, at least, the further side of the vague biological limit, which separates the present geological epoch from that which immediately preceded it. And there can be no doubt that the physical geography of Europe has changed wonderfully, since the bones of Men and Mammoths, Hyænas and Rhinoceroses were washed pell-mell into the cave of Engis.

The skull from the cave of Engis was originally discovered by Professor Schmerling, and was described by him, together with other human remains disinterred at the same time, in his valuable work, "Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles découverts dans les cavernes de la Province de Liège," published in 1833 (p. 59, _et seq._), from which the following paragraphs are extracted, the precise expressions of the author being, as far as possible, preserved.

"In the first place, I must remark that these human
remains, which are in my possession, are characterized,
like the thousands of bones which I have lately been
disinterring, by the extent of the decomposition which
they have undergone, which is precisely the same as that
of the extinct species: all, with a few exceptions, are
broken; some few are rounded, as is frequently found to be
the case in fossil remains of other species. The fractures
are vertical or oblique; none of them are eroded; their
colour does not differ from that of other fossil bones,
and varies from whitish yellow to blackish. All are
lighter than recent bones, with the exception of those
which have a calcareous incrustation, and the cavities of
which are filled with such matter.

"The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate I.,
figs. 1, 2, is that of an old person. The sutures are
beginning to be effaced: all the facial bones are wanting,
and of the temporal bones only a fragment of that of the
right side is preserved.

"The face and the base of the cranium had been detached
before the skull was deposited in the cave, for we were
unable to find those parts, though the whole cavern was
regularly searched. The cranium was met with at a depth of
a metre and a half [five feet nearly] hidden under an
osseous breccia, composed of the remains of small animals,
and containing one rhinoceros tusk, with several teeth of
horses and of ruminants. This breccia, which has been
spoken of above (p. 30), was a metre [3-1/4 feet about]
wide, and rose to the height of a metre and a half above
the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which it adhered
strongly.

"The earth which contained this human skull exhibited no
trace of disturbance: teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyæna,
and bear, surrounded it on all sides.

"The famous Blumenbach[38] has directed attention to the
differences presented by the form and the dimensions of
human crania of different races. This important work would
have assisted us greatly, if the face, a part essential
for the determination of race, with more or less accuracy,
had not been wanting in our fossil cranium.

"We are convinced that even if the skull had been
complete, it would not have been possible to pronounce,
with certainty, upon a single specimen; for individual
variations are so numerous in the crania of one and the
same race, that one cannot, without laying oneself open to
large chances of error, draw any inference from a single
fragment of a cranium to the general form of the head to
which it belonged.

"Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting the
form of this fossil skull, we may observe that, from the
first, the elongated and narrow form of the forehead
attracted our attention.

"In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its
narrowness, and the form of the orbit, approximate it more
nearly to the cranium of an Ethiopian than to that of an
European: the elongated form and the produced occiput are
also characters which we believe to be observable in our
fossil cranium; but to remove all doubt upon that subject
I have caused the contours of the cranium of an European
and of an Ethiopian to be drawn and the foreheads
represented. Plate II., Figs. 1 and 2, and, in the same
plate, Figs. 3 and 4, will render the differences easily
distinguishable; and a single glance at the figures, will
be more instructive than a long and wearisome description.

"At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the origin of
the man from whence this fossil skull proceeded, we may
express an opinion without exposing ourselves to a
fruitless controversy. Each may adopt the hypothesis which
seems to him most probable: for my own part, I hold it to
be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged to a person
of limited intellectual faculties, and we conclude thence
that it belonged to a man of a low degree of civilization:
a deduction which is borne out by contrasting the capacity
of the frontal with that of the occipital region.

"Another cranium of a young individual was discovered in
the floor of the cavern beside the tooth of an elephant;
the skull was entire when found, but the moment it was
lifted it fell into pieces, which I have not, as yet, been
able to put together again. But I have represented the
bones of the upper jaw, Plate I., Fig. 5. The state of the
alveoli and the teeth, shows that the molars had not yet
pierced the gum. Detached milk molars and some fragments
of a human skull, proceed from this same place. The Figure
3, represents a human superior incisor tooth, the size of
which is truly remarkable.[39]

"Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, the
molar teeth of which are worn down to the roots.

"I possess two vertebræ, a first and last dorsal.

"A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III., Fig. 1);
although it belonged to a young individual, this bone
shows that he must have been of great stature.[40]

"Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not
indicate that the height of the man, to whom they
belonged, exceeded five feet and a half.

"As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which
are in my possession, consist merely of a fragment of an
ulna and of a radius (Plate III., Fig. 5 and 6).

"Figure 2, Plate IV., represents a metacarpal bone,
contained in the breccia, of which we have spoken; it was
found in the lower part above the cranium: add to this
some metacarpal bones, found at very different distances,
half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the hand, and
one of the foot.

"This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human bones
collected in the cavern of Engis, which has preserved for
us the remains of three individuals, surrounded by those
of the Elephant, of the Rhinoceros, and of Carnivora of
species unknown in the present creation."

* * * * *

From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of Engis, on the right bank of the Meuse, Schmerling obtained the remains of three other individuals of Man, among which were only two fragments of parietal bones, but many bones of the extremities. In one case, a broken fragment of an ulna was soldered to a like fragment of a radius by stalagmite, a condition frequently observed among the bones of the Cave Bear (_Ursus spelæus_), found in the Belgian caverns.

It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor Schmerling found, incrusted with stalagmite and joined to a stone, the pointed bone implement, which he has figured in Fig. 7 of his Plate XXXVI., and worked flints were found by him in all those Belgian caves, which contained an abundance of fossil bones.

A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, published in the Comptes Rendus of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, for July 2nd, 1838, speaks of a visit (and apparently a very hasty one) paid to the collection of Professor "Schermidt" (which is presumably a misprint for Schmerling) at Liège. The writer briefly criticises the drawings which illustrate Schmerling's work, and affirms that the "human cranium is a little longer than it is represented" in Schmerling's figure. The only other remark worth quoting is this:--"The aspect of the human bones differs little from that of the cave bones, with which we are familiar, and of which there is a considerable collection in the same place. With respect to their special forms, compared with those of the varieties of recent human crania, few _certain_ conclusions can be put forward; for much greater differences exist between the different specimens of well-characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium of Liège and that of one of those varieties selected as a term of comparison."

Geoffroy St. Hilaire's remarks are, it will be observed, little but an echo of the philosophic doubts of the describer and discoverer of the remains. As to the critique upon Schmerling's figures, I find that the side view given by the latter is really about 3/10ths of an inch shorter than the original, and that the front view is diminished to about the same extent. Otherwise the representation is not, in any way, inaccurate, but corresponds very well with the cast which is in my possession.

A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling seems to have missed, has since been fitted on to the rest of the cranium by an accomplished anatomist, Dr. Spring of Liège, under whose direction an excellent plaster cast was made for Sir Charles Lyell. It is upon and from a duplicate of that cast that my own observations and the accompanying figures, the outlines of which are copied from very accurate Camera lucida drawings, by my friend Mr. Busk, reduced to one-half of the natural size, are made.

As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirely absent; but the roof of the cranium, consisting of the frontal, parietal, and the greater part of the occipital bones, as far as the middle of the occipital foramen, is entire or nearly so. The left temporal bone is wanting. Of the right temporal, the parts in the immediate neighbourhood of the auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a considerable portion of the squamous element of the temporal are well preserved (Fig. 22).

The lines of fracture which remain between the coadjusted pieces of the skull, and are faithfully displayed in Schmerling's figure, are readily traceable in the cast. The sutures are also discernible, but the complex disposition of their serrations, shown in the figure, is not obvious in the cast. Though the ridges which give attachment to muscles are not excessively prominent, they are well marked, and taken together with the apparently well developed frontal sinuses, and the condition of the sutures, leave no doubt on my mind that the skull is that of an adult, if not middle-aged man.

The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. Its extreme breadth, which corresponds very nearly with the interval between the parietal protuberances, is not more than 5.4 inches. The proportion of the length to the breadth is therefore very nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn from the point at which the brow curves in towards the root of the nose, and which is called the "glabella" (_a_), (Fig. 22), to the occipital protuberance (_b_), and the distance to the highest point of the arch of the skull be measured perpendicularly from this line, it will be found to be 4.75 inches. Viewed from above, Fig. 23, A, the forehead presents an evenly rounded curve, and passes into the contour of the sides and back of the skull, which describes a tolerably regular elliptical curve.

The front view (Fig. 23, B) shows that the roof of the skull was very regularly and elegantly arched in the transverse direction, and that the transverse diameter was a little less below the parietal protuberances, than above them. The forehead cannot be called narrow in relation to the rest of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating forehead; on the contrary, the antero-posterior contour of the skull is well arched, so that the distance along that contour, from the nasal depression to the occipital protuberance, measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc of the skull, measured from one auditory foramen to the other, across the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. The sagittal suture itself is 5.5 inches long.

The supraciliary prominences or brow-ridges (on each side of _a_, Fig. 22) are well, but not excessively, developed, and are separated by a median depression. Their principal elevation is disposed so obliquely that I judge them to be due to large frontal sinuses.

If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protuberance (_a_, _b_, Fig. 22) be made horizontal, no part of the occipital region projects more than 1/10th an inch behind the posterior extremity of that line, and the upper edge of the auditory foramen (_c_) is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel with this upon the outer surface of the skull.

A transverse line drawn from one auditory foramen to the other traverses, as usual, the forepart of the occipital foramen. The capacity of the interior of this fragmentary skull has not been ascertained.

* * * * *

The history of the Human remains from the cavern in the Neanderthal may best be given in the words of their original describer, Dr. Schaaffhausen,[41] as translated by Mr. Busk.

"In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was
discovered in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near
Hochdal, between Düsseldorf and Elberfeld. Of this,
however, I was unable to procure more than a plaster cast
of the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up
an account of its remarkable conformation, which was, in
the first instance, read on the 4th of February, 1857, at
the meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical and Natural History
Society, at Bonn.[42] Subsequently Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom
science is indebted for the preservation of these bones,
which were not at first regarded as human, and into whose
possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium from
Elberfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more
accurate anatomical examination. At the General Meeting of
the Natural History Society of Prussian Rhineland and
Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of June, 1857,[43] Dr.
Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of the locality, and
of the circumstances under which the discovery was made.
He was of opinion that the bones might be regarded as
fossil; and in coming to this conclusion, he laid especial
stress upon the existence of dendritic deposits, with
which their surface was covered, and which were first
noticed upon them by Professor Mayer. To this
communication I appended a brief report on the results of
my anatomical examination of the bones. The conclusions at
which I arrived were:--1st. That the extraordinary form
of the skull was due to a natural conformation hitherto
not known to exist, even in the most barbarous races. 2nd.
That these remarkable human remains belonged to a period
antecedent to the time of the Celts and Germans, and were
in all probability derived from one of the wild races of
Northwestern Europe, spoken of by Latin writers; and which
were encountered as autochthones by the German immigrants.
And 3rdly. That it was beyond doubt that these human
relics were traceable to a period at which the latest
animals of the diluvium still existed; but that no proof
of this assumption, nor consequently of their so-termed
_fossil_ condition, was afforded by the circumstances
under which the bones were discovered."

As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of these circumstances, I borrow the following account of them from one of his letters. "A small cave or grotto, high enough to admit a man, and about 15 feet deep from the entrance, which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the southern wall of the gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, at a distance of about 100 feet from the Düssel, and about 60 feet above the bottom of the valley. In its earlier and uninjured condition, this cavern opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front of it, and from which the rocky wall descended almost perpendicularly into the river. It could be reached, though with difficulty, from above. The uneven floor was covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with a deposit of mud, sparingly intermixed with rounded fragments of chert. In the removing of this deposit, the bones were discovered. The skull was first noticed, placed nearest to the entrance of the cavern; and further in, the other bones, lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was assured, in the most positive terms, by two labourers who were employed to clear out the grotto, and who were questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea was entertained of the bones being human; and it was not till several weeks after their discovery that they were recognised as such by me, and placed in security. But, as the importance of the discovery was not at the time perceived, the labourers were very careless in the collecting, and secured chiefly only the larger bones; and to this circumstance it may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably perfect skeleton came into my possession."

My anatomical examination of these bones afforded the following results:--

The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long elliptical form. A most remarkable peculiarity is at once obvious in the extraordinary development of the frontal sinuses, owing to which the superciliary ridges, which coalesce completely in the middle, are rendered so prominent, that the frontal bone exhibits a considerable hollow or depression above, or rather behind them, whilst a deep depression is also formed in the situation of the root of the nose. The forehead is narrow and low, though the middle and hinder portions of the cranial arch are well developed. Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that has been preserved consists only of the portion situated above the roof of the orbits and the superior occipital ridges, which are greatly developed, and almost conjoined so as to form a horizontal eminence. It includes almost the whole of the frontal bone, both parietals, a small part of the squamous and the upper-third of the occipital. The recently fractured surfaces show that the skull was broken at the time of its disinterment. The cavity holds 16,876 grains of water, whence its cubical contents may be estimated at 57.64 inches, or 1033.24 cubic centimetres. In making this estimation, the water is supposed to stand on a level with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the deepest notch in the squamous margin of the parietal, and with the superior semicircular ridges of the occipital. Estimated in dried millet-seed, the contents equalled 31 ounces, Prussian Apothecaries' weight. The semicircular line indicating the upper boundary of the attachment of the temporal muscle, though not very strongly marked, ascends nevertheless to more than half the height of the parietal bone. On the right superciliary ridge is observable an oblique furrow or depression, indicative of an injury received during life.[44] The coronal and sagittal sutures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on the inside so completely ossified as to have left no traces whatever, whilst the lambdoidal remains quite open. The depressions for the Pacchionian glands are deep and numerous; and there is an unusually deep vascular groove immediately behind the coronal suture, which, as it terminates in a foramen, no doubt transmitted a _vena emissaria_. The course of the frontal suture is indicated externally by a slight ridge; and where it joins the coronal, this ridge rises into a small protuberance. The course of the sagittal suture is grooved, and above the angle of the occipital bone the parietals are depressed.

mm.[45]
The length of the skull from the nasal
process of the frontal over the vertex
to the superior semicircular lines of the
occipital measures 303 (300)=12.0".

Circumference over the orbital ridges and
the superior semicircular lines of the
occipital 590 (590)=23.37" or 23".

Width of the frontal from the middle of
the temporal line on one side to the
same point on the opposite 104 (114)=4.1"-4.5".

Length of the frontal from the nasal
process to the coronal suture 133 (125)=5.25"-5".

Extreme width of the frontal sinuses 25 (23)=1.0"-0.9".

Vertical height above a line joining the
deepest notches in the squamous border
of the parietals 70 = 2.75".

Width of hinder part of skull from one
parietal protuberance to the other 138 (150)=5.4"-5.9".

Distance from the upper angle of the
occipital to the superior semicircular
lines 51 (60)=1.9"-2.4".

Thickness of the bone at the parietal
protuberance 8.

---- at the angle of the occipital 9.

---- at the superior semicircular line of
the occipital 10 = 0.3".

Besides the cranium, the following bones have been secured:--

1. Both thigh-bones, perfect. These, like the skull, and all the other bones, are characterized by their unusual thickness, and the great development of all the elevations and depressions for the attachment of muscles. In the Anatomical Museum at Bonn, under the designation of "Giant's-bones," are some recent thigh-bones, with which in thickness the foregoing pretty nearly correspond, although they are shorter.

Giant's bones. Fossil bones.
mm. mm.
Length 542 = 21.4" 438 = 17.4"
Diameter of head of femur 54 = 2.14" 53 = 2.0"
" of lower articular end, from
one condyle to the other 89 = 3.5" 87 = 3.4"
Diameter of femur in the middle 33 = 1.2" 30 = 1.1"

2. A perfect right humerus, whose size shows that it belongs to the thigh-bones.

mm.
Length 312 = 12.3"
Thickness in the middle 26 = 1.0"
Diameter of head 49 = 1.9"

Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimensions, and the upper-third of a right ulna corresponding to the humerus and radius.

3. A left humerus, of which the upper-third is wanting, and which is so much slenderer than the right as apparently to belong to a distinct individual; a left _ulna_, which, though complete, is pathologically deformed, the coronoid process being so much enlarged by bony growth, that flexure of the elbow beyond a right angle must have been impossible; the anterior fossa of the humerus for the reception of the coronoid process being also filled up with a similar bony growth. At the same time, the olecranon is curved strongly downwards. As the bone presents no sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be supposed that an injury sustained during life was the cause of the anchylosis. When the left ulna is compared with the right radius, it might at first sight be concluded that the bones respectively belonged to different individuals, the ulna being more than half an inch too short for articulation with a corresponding radius. But it is clear that this shortening, as well as the attenuation of the left humerus, are both consequent upon the pathological condition above described.

4. A left _ilium_, almost perfect, and belonging to the femur; a fragment of the right _scapula_; the anterior extremity of a rib of the right side; and the same part of a rib of the left side; the hinder part of a rib of the right side; and, lastly, two hinder portions and one middle portion of ribs, which, from their unusually rounded shape, and abrupt curvature, more resemble the ribs of a carnivorous animal than those of a man. Dr. H. v. Meyer, however, to whose judgment I defer, will not venture to declare them to be ribs of any animal; and it only remains to suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen from an unusually powerful development of the thoracic muscles.