Page:The American Journal of Science, series 4, volume 4.djvu/246

222 the fossil individual from Trinil. According to the femur, it would be a man with a perfect title to the name ; according to the skull and the teeth, it is a creature low enough, in relation to the lowest human races, to be considered as passing beyond the lower limit for the human species or genus, so far as known, in the measure that its inferiority represents the inferiority of its race. It is this last point that rests in the condition of a hypothesis, but of a hypothesis which has for itself the greatest possibility. This hypothesis admitted, we are obliged to agree, viewed from the point of view of the theory of evolution, that the individual of Trinil, incontestably hominian, presents an ensemble of anatomic conditions responding marvelously to that which the theory of evolution could look for in an ancestral race.

As regards the skull, I have been able, by virtue of the cast kindly given to the Anthropological Laboratory by Mr. Dubois, to attempt the graphic reconstruction. I made the attempt simply to satisfy myself of the aspect resulting from diverse craniologic proportions, but I believe I have obtained a drawing conforming approximately enough to the reality to be of interest to anatomists.