Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/871

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 85$

people, but to the higher standard prevailing, which made families require more rooms than had previously been the case. The number of people living in one room is tending to decline, and the number living in two and three rooms is increasing.

During the last forty years rents have been constantly rising. Building is becoming more expensive, owing to a rise both in the cost of material and in wages. At the same time, the income of the people is also rising. But the smaller a man's income is, the larger is the percentage he pays in rent. In Leipzig a workman with an annual income of 1,100 marks or less pays about 23 per cent, in rent ; with an income ranging from 1,100 to 2,200 marks, he pays 19.02 per cent, for rent; with between 4,300 and 8,300 marks, one pays 15.70 per cent. ; with an income of more than 26,000 marks, one pays only 4.42 per cent. The foregoing facts, in which, upon the whole, a slight improvement in housing conditions may be seen, are from a paper read by Professor Dr. Pohle, of Frankfort-on-Main.

The funds of the Workingmen's Insurance have been turned to account to some extent in erecting cheap dwellings, and for loans with the same object. The German municipalities also, realizing that overcrowding is a source of disease, have framed building regulations which insure sanitary conditions, and prevent the upgrowth of slums. The land speculator is successfully baffled by the pro- hibition of houses of more than two stories. The consequence is that no one will buy ground held at speculative prices, as the rent of a two-story house would bring in a very poor interest on the investment. A considerable number of cities have gone so far as to build workmen's houses themselves. DR. P. F. WALLI, in (London) Charity Organization Review, January, 1905. E. B. W.

An Argument for the Common Origin of Men and Anthropoid Apes. Despite the criticism of Professor V. Giuffrida Ruggeri, I maintain that my dia- gram showing the position of the bregma in the Java cranium, published in the Archiv fur Anthropologie, was correct. I have taken two Australian skulls and compared them with the Java cranium. There is in them a similarity. The media-frontal passages show the original crowtis, with bregma lying behind the frontal bump. In our collection of 130 skulls of native adult Australians there is not a single one where the frontal suturae remained open. In this they resemble prehistoric human skulls, the skulls of anthropoid apes, and other apes. With the modern European races about 9 per cent, remain open up to adult age, and fre- quently until a much later period in life. Among the skulls of the Gibbon collec- tion is one of a young monkey with a closed suture.

The original stem is the same for man and ape. Any theory concerning the relation between man and the living anthropoid apes, and the relation among these anthropoids, must give an explanation for the anatomical structure of the entire group. He quotes Professor A. Keith, professor of anatomy in the London hospital, saying : " The Gibbon monkey represents the earliest degree in development in the orthograde stem, and man the last." Out of 1,065 points in the anatomical struc- ture of man, man has 312 exclusively, 396 in common with the chimpanzee, 385 with the gorilla, 272 with the ourangoutang, and 188 with the Gibbon. Keith holds that there is no other explanation than that man, the chimpanzee, and the ourang- outang are sons of one stem. The ourangoutang is an earlier branch of the stem ; the chimpanzee and gorilla were later branches ; likewise the genus hotno is another twig of the paternal branch.

The genus homo divided itself in the Pleistocene age into different diverging races, which possess, besides other characteristics, differences in the shape of the skulls. In a former treatment we have shown that the mass of the brain of the civilized man is greater than was the mass of the brain of the man in the Pleistocene age. We must remember that the mass of the brain depends on the size of the body. It might appear as if man was a plantigrade animal in the Pleistocene period ; but we have no reason to assume that any differences in structure in the bodies and limbs have been formed. But during the long epochs which he has lived on the earth, man's skull and brain have developed remarkably. The average capacity of the European's skull is 1,550 cubic centimeters, while that of the Java skull is not to exceed 950.

With some savage races (Australian) not less than 12 per cent of the forward lower angle of the. parietal bone divides the os temporale from the os frontale, as is