29. PALEONTOLOGY


1. The PITHECANTHROPUS, which is a high sounding name for an
ape-man (from Grk. pithekos, ape, and anthropos, man) was found by
Dr. Dubois, an ardent evolutionist, in 1892, in Trinil in the island
of Java. It lived, it is said, 750,000 years ago. He found, buried in
the Pleistocene beds, 40 feet below the surface in the sand, _the
upper portion of a skull, a tooth and a thigh bone_. "It was
fortunate," says Dr. Chapin, "that the most distinctive portions of
the human (sic) frame should have been preserved, because from these
specimens, we are able to reconstruct (?) the being, and to say with
assurance (!) that his walk was erect in manlike posture, that he had
mental power considerably above the ape, (it will not do to be too
definite) and his powers of speech were somewhat limited. (A string of
guesses wholly unwarranted.) This man stood half way between the
anthropoid and the existing men."--Social Evolution, p. 61.

A high authority declares,--"Shortly after this discovery, 24 of the
most eminent scientists of Europe met. Ten said that the bones
belonged to an ape; 7, to a man; and 7 (less than one-third) said they
were a missing link." Some of the most eminent scientists say that
some of the bones belong to a man, and some to an ape, baboon, or
monkey. The great Prof. Virchow says: "There is no evidence at all
that these bones were parts of the same creature." But such adverse
opinions do not weigh much with modern evolutionists determined to win
at all hazards.