Page:The American Journal of Science, series 4, volume 4.djvu/248

224 with the cranial cap of Trinil, to construct a skull having an appearance either completely human or completely simian. The occipital characters which I attributed to it differ radically from those of adult anthropoids; in vain did I orient it in superposing it upon a human cranium; it had not, for that, an appearance suitably human, and we attempt in vain to pivot it about its bi-auricular axis in order to give it an air more human or more simian : we are struck by divers incompatibilities. The truth, which, I think, will appear clearly to all craniologists, is that the skull from Trinil represents the morphologic stage of the young anthropoid, a stage during which these animals approach man in important cranial characters much more nearly than at the adult age.

The adult Pithecanthropus possessed these characters of the young anthropoid; such is the result of our attempt at reconstitution, result independent, I repeat, of incurring chances of error, independent also of any preconceived idea, for I have striven only to place each separate point of the cranium and each line conformably to anatomic correlations without preoccupying myself as to the final result. It has been admitted that the two molars, the femur, and the skull belong to the same individual, but this hypothesis has not exercised the least influence upon the drawing of the cranial region, properly so called. The technical details and justifications are to be found in the Bulletin de la Société d' Anthropologie above mentioned. I present here only a few drawings, which may be compared advantageously with the preceding.

The fact that the skull from Java bears such a strong mor-