Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/172

166 i66 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

and marabouts. Over a score of mammals^ a typical forest ai border assemblage^ have been described. These comprise a several carnivores including both dogs and cats^ two rhinoceroe popotamus, two wild hogs^ several deer including the Samba India and the Elidang deer still living in Java, buffalo and wi the porcupine, a large pangolin and hyena, a tapir like the Sumatra tapir, and at least three elephants — a Stegodon and an both close to Indian species of the Pliocene (Siwalik) and PI (Narbada), and another Elephas like the straight-tusked Elep quus of the early European Pleistocene. This fauna as we associated flora are conclusively continental instead of insular acter and were clearly derived from the northwest.*

Dubois discovered the remains of Pithecanthropus in 1891 ] Bengawan or Solo River near the little hamlet of Trinil in ea£ Java. To the north are the low east and west range of the Hills, to the south lies the high cone of the volcano of Lawoe. covery excited the greatest interest and a vast literature has aroimd the ape man long thought to be Pliocene in age. Dur and 1908 the Selenka expedition made careful excavations at Tr the object of supplementing Dubois's scanty material, collecth vertebrate remains and also the fossil plants which throw sue come light on the exact age and environment of the ape man, b to find any additionl Pithecanthropus remains. The deposits ai tile with little regularity in the sequence of bedding and consist nating lenticular beds of volcanic debris (lapilli and ashes) sc clayey and sometimes sandy, with a total thickness of about The general sequence is as follows:

Beeent oZUivittm.

Bed ashes and lapiUi.

Argillaceous tuff.

Itif aeeouB sandstone with a few leaves and bones. ? * Tuf aeeous sandstone with day balls containing shells. ^ Interbedded ash and clay (main plant layer ), a few bones. ^ Tuf aeeous sandstone (main bone layer) {Piihecanthropm), a fe

I and fresh water-shells.

Lahar conglomerate.

The restricted size of the present island of Java, probably < glacial origin, proved inimical to some of the larger mammals, elephant and tapir are absent in the existing fauna, although noceros still inhabits the uplands. The recentness of Java's sep from the mainland is shown by the Siamese and Indian characte

of these animals from those stiU existing. The majority of the fossils tainly very close to modern oriental forms.
 * Vertebrate paleontologists differ regarding the distinctness of the i

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