Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/174

168 168 TEE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

mediate vicinity of Trinil, where the climate is now drier anc warmer, bnt 32 of them, or 62 per cent., are still found in Jav nine, or 57 per cent., are mainly Indo-Chinese and one {Uva confined to India and Ceylon. The flora was an evergreen i upland in character, and is much like that found at the prest the Khassis Mountains of Assam. It indicates the very hea of about 150 inches yearly as compared with 60 to 100 inc modern records. A mean annual temperature of about 70^ i for the early Pleistocene as compared with 75° to 80° of the

The heavy rains and slight lowering of temperatures appei spond to the times of glaciation in Europe and North Americ well known that glaciation in high latitudes was contempora: pluvial periods in the tropics. The survival of so many mai those of the Pliocene of the foothills of the Himalayas indica Trinil man lived in early Pleistocene times, but the fact th the numerous associated fossil plants are extinct species and are identical with known Pliocene plants from Java and Japf that it must have fallen well within the Pleistocene. That bone bed was not appreciably older than the main plant bed over it is shown by the presence of some of the same species and fresh-water shells in the bone bed and by the presence of s bones above the main plant bed. We are thus led to the conci Pithecanthropus lived in the tropical evergreen forests of Ja the first or second periods of glaciation in Europe and North or during what Europeans call the Scanian (Gunz) and (Mindel) glaciations, corresponding to our Nebraskan and £ sheets.

This was a long time ago, just how long it is difficult to sa from very careful estimates based on a detailed study of the { the Alps estimated that the duration of the Pleistocene wa 620,000 and 840,000 years. Osbom considers that Pithec lived about 500,000 years ago. Personally I believe these estin too large. One fact stands out clearly, that very many tho years have passed since the ape man and the elephants and hij roamed over Java. Some realization of this time may be gatb deal in the more positive ratios rather than in actual estimatec If the time that has elapsed since the margin of the ice shec our great lakes and covered New England be taken as a unit, lapse of time since Pithecanthropus was buried in the river Java was at least twenty times as great.

When we look at the admirable restoration of Pithecantl McGregor we see many indications of the ape ancestry and y managed to catch a look of fleeting intelligence and a dumb gaze that gives a promise of the great things that the descei

�� �