The Ape -Man of Java
Copyright. 1903, by T. C. MoCIure.)
in iiifi ternary mioxiie epocn ins
il I l cumauc conaiuunt o me nartn
14 I I ern hemisphere of the earth were
I Jjjftpl queer. In most part of Kurope
I t.r..l It was no warm that palms and
Other tropical growths thrived. And, aa In
tha swampy forests of llornoo and Africa
today, o various species of man-like apes
dwelled In the forents of what Is now Rhen
ish, French nnd Swiss territory.
Ono of theso man-like apes, christened
dryopl Ulceus, has been found In fossil
form In the district of Haute Garonne In
Franco. It la an animal a little larger than
the living chlmpans-e. For a Urns It was
believed that In dryopl thectis we had the
rnont man-like of all known apes. Dut
dryupilhi-cus has proved to bo less man
like than evifn the chimpanzee.
Then a second sperlcs was discovered. It
has been named plloplthecus. It was
spreud well over Kurope In the mlocene
period, uii.l If any living zoologist rould
havo met the creature In the troplnl for
Hts he would have been nmased at Its
ruscinldauco to an apt that is living today.
It Is that particular form or man-like npo
which Is least familiar and Interesting to
the public -the gibbon.
In their whole structure the gibtions are
undoubtedly man-Ilk., .. r,ut in many
anatomical characteristics they approach
nearer to the lower monkeys than do
or.niK-outat.Ks. gorillas or chimpanzees.
The irlhtMin does not strike us at first
night like a man-Ilk npe. hut rather as
ft e-rotom.ly exaggerated caricature of the
true monkey. He hll9 nrmM ,mllrro,Is
1K that they ar ,lk; ,,., M
II nibs.
thai"! T '"u""8 h ""a,"y
th;1,l' W, " -"n. Of all mon
keys tl.e gibbon Is the one that most de
eldedly walks upright.
The orung-mit.mg "walks" with his leg,
ben while his arms reach forward Jffr
" supports. The Hole , tno fot J
wllk 'STL P""ty c,u In
walk. But he doe not us- his Immense
thZh? KU,rr'"- em Wgher
than his head and bends Ihem a, at C
IZTk Glancing pole. At the tarns
time h. putlI ,. pnUrB to
but practicable; so practicable that the rfbl
Srcum", UPr'8hl " flat BTOUnd Und"
circumi.tnnces.
bJte6 K'bh"n n,her "- ftttrl-
that1?. "i""- l"8 ,hr0nt " "W so
Ley ?" .',a,,, f rou No mo
In tM, ot any kind. equal, man
m this, except the gibbon. Th, rion
that the song of the gibbon p'eaaed him
rreat.y. Mng lh. musical ,Mt h
Does this mean that the gibton,. the for
t Khosts of Southern Asia. ore. after all
"o-rer to the ancestral forms of e"r y man
than .re the gorillas and orang-outan
the existence of gibbon ape. , long
J- he trrttar, epoch gives . a vafu..
1 n,aK,, ,hc Kibbun oldest
man like ape of the world.
thi 1! ,H co,r,, ,h fo 11 remain, of
gibbons of the rnhn.-ene period talce ua
They are earlier and lower tban he
The historical chain would be: From th.
tower mok,y. a Ilne ccndlng J
lre. rmK,he B,bb"n- a -l-"on Into
iln. tTC ne f ,hee bDC" re
mains the gibbon, unaltered, lasting to th.
m-n-like .pea like the gorilla, chlmpana
and orang. And. the third branch. .tiU
veiled in mystery, leads to man.
mTD P".,,, the- "au"t ,-nd between
man un t tne nn.h.f,bbo1( Dur dt!ducUonl
would lead uh to Imagine this ape-man
M having shorter arms than the gibbon of
todjiy. His ,,8 an(1 fo.t wouM hav- fQ
uitod better to upright walking than
those of today, gibbon. And hi, brain
must Is o a dimension about half way
betwsen that of the brnln of the gibbon
of today and the lowest human race of
toda y.
Many year, ago a fowl! upper thigh was
found near Mayence in Oermany. First It
waa auppod to U, the thlKh of a human
femala about twelve years old. Hut at last
It was proved absolutely to be a leg bone
of a gibbon ape, thus placing the exist
ence of the gibbon monkeys in Kuropo
absolutely Into the last period of the ter
tiary epoch.
Then a skull of a gibbon was found
near Calcutta. In India In strata belonging
to a period only a little later In this same
tertiary epoch.
In the latter third of tertiary time there
wore many changus In the habitat of mam
mals on the northern hemisphere, owing
probably to changes in temperature. It is
CneeJvabk that the gibbons began to raovs
toward the warmer parts of Asia. Now,
bad the division of the branches leading
severally to gibbons, man-like apes and
ape-men already occurred at this time?
Ia a matter like this, demanding exact
daoMMMtratiost w caaaut admit th oM
creation legend of tha world that tell of
man's beginning Asia. But It must ba
admitted that In strictly soologlcal facta
thero Is a certain suggestion that the cradle
of humanity wii there.
Kven Vlrchow, despite Ms remarkable
attitude toward theories based on Dar
winism, unbent sufficiently to declare that,
If It wore possible to discover fossil re
mains of an ape-man anywhere. It should
be possible In India and the regions around
Sunda Straits.
Vlrchow's declaration became decisive
for the plans of a yountf Holland doctor.
He chose Java for his field.
ll was F.ugene Dubois. Within four
years after the beginning of his excavations
ho announced that Vlrchow's problem had
been answered. A Im-Iiib, walking upright,
with a brain between tho brain of man
lll;e ape and man. In many ways strikingly
like the gibbon, but In many other ways
a human, had been found; the misslns
link between gibbon nnd man pithecan
thropus erectus, the crect-walklng ape
man. During the four years of excavntlon Du
bois had found so many fossil hones of
animals of all kinds th-tt they filled four
hundred casis when they were packed for
shipment to Ieyden.
The excavations were m:;da In certain
strata in the middle part of the long Island.
They were formed of volearlc matter, great
masses of boiling mud which poured from
the volcanic chains, carrying rocks with
them. Kven in our days the volcanoes of
Java and neighboring islands display their
tremendous forces, destroying villages and
tribes. We remember the bursting of the
island Krakatan that Involved the whole
earth in atmospheric disturbance.
It Is no wonder that In such a land vol
canic deposits can form whole chains of
hills, hiding the traces of vanished life
of post epochs deep In their Interior.
The npe cf deposits Jn which Dubois
woiked may be placed toward the end
of tertinry times.
At that time Ichthyosaurus, who had
ruled tr.o sens even there, had vanished
wy. But In Europe there was the mam
moth and In America were elephants,
horses, toed horses and the giant sloth,
megatherium.
At that time Java cither was no Island
The shoalness of the sea between Jiv.i.
or had been ono for only a short period.
Borneo. Sumatra and the mainland of In
dia, taken in conjunction with many XTolog
ical facts, establishes almost certainly that
Death Hedges Their Duty
T WA8 just about three months
ago that a group of mon stood on
the shore by the rapids above
Niagara's Horsct-hoc Falls, when
Jacques Foisy. girdled by a frail
m
rope, went out Into the stream and drove
a spile Into a crevice In the rock. To-day
a party of New York mechanical experts
are superintending the linrardous task of
damming the rapids above these falls. The
work is part of a plan for developing
1JS.00O horse-power electrical energy, and
the cost when complete nnd rendy for the
power to do Its work will be close to I7.0CO,
0W. The syndicate is known ns the Klec
tricnl Development company of Ontario,
ond some of the best engineering men of
America have been called Into requisition.
They will boat back the rapids, dam their
flow, dry up the bed of the river above the
falls for twelve acres, erect a new channel
for port of Us course. Then they will sink
a shaft of 100 feet niid create tho power
through thus diverting the water Into tt.
To carry away this water after it haa ben
used a tunnel J.2nu feet long will he built
at a depth of ITT feet below the bed of tho
rapids. The exit of the tunnel for the dis
charge of the tail race water will be under
tho very brow of the falls.
The work of constructing the coffer dam
Is a spectacular one. It bristles with start
ling suggestions. Ahead is the roar of the
falls, the drop, the rocks, the whirlpool
rapids nnd the Devil s Hole. Behind Is the
ceaseless torrent battling against the inva
sion, this clmining of Its right to How and
.run nt will. Inch by Inch the dam forcos
its way Into tho current, each foot from
shore making the water deeper, the rush
moro terrlllc, and the battle between man
and nature more ningularly earnest. One
foot, two feet, ten and now twenty-four
feet are registered as the depth of those
solid walls of water that roar against the
dam, drenching the little corps of adven
turous workers with Its spray.
It la a little corps of workers of neces
sity, for It Is not a work on which a great
force of men could be available. It is tho
Gideon's band, tlic selected few who are
employed here. It is not a work that can
bo hurried. K.u h Htep, each movement, has
to ho takuii with care. The uieu to do tha
outpost work on this dam were secured
with much difficulty. Lucrative wages
were offered, but one wrong step means
death to the worker, dcuth in the falls and
then the whirlpool ruplds to play with
the liody for a while.
The dan- will, when completed, be 2,200
feet In length. The cribs will be 24 by 14
feet, and each one will, ft Is estlm"
that whe'e Island world once waa a part
of the Indian mainland. Wallace has
Down strikingly that tho true ancient
boundary of tho Aalatlc mainland runs
along a line from Borneo-Java and Celebes.
Even today tho ocean descends suddenly
to enormous depths just beyond that line.
And beyond It the animal world displays it
self In strange forms the grotesqueness
of the Australian fauna.
In Java at that time, when It was still
part of the mainland or shortly after it
had become Island, there was steg.idon,
tho link between the mastodon ai d the true
elephant. There was a hippopotamus, now
to be found only In Africa, but then living
in Asia nnd In Kuropc.
Thousands of valuable bones were gath
ered by Dubois. And at last, In an ancient
river bed, he found four loone, imperfect
bones that are worth more than all tha
thousands.
First a lono tooth apieared. Then, In tho
same level, but three feet away, th. roof
of a skull. Nino feet farther below th re
was another tooth. And at last, thirty-j-lx
feet beyond that lind, there was a left up
per thigh.
it is plain what had br-en tb deRtroyer.
The fkeleton, or perhaps lh rorp.ie, had
fallen Into the river. Gradually the current
had torn It apart ar.d carried the fragments
away. Only these few parts hud remained
fast in the mud and had been baked Into
stone with that mud In the course of time.
But fortunately the four rrt that wero
thus preserved are most useful.
The skull points, unmkstakably to the
gibbon. But i'a size U beyond that of tha
ape. After careful cleansing and meisur
ln? of its capacity, Dubois estimates that
the brain contained In It occupied from
nlno hundred to nine hundred and fifty
cubic centimetres. I'nder no circumstances
could It have been mere thin a thousind.
The grratet-.t measure of a mi 1.3 gurila's
brain in a special case was six hundred
and five cubic centimetres. In gen ral the
gorilla brain Is I'M In the male and a llttlo
less for the female. No other man-like ape
equals the gorilla.
The riddlo-th'ng of Java, therefore, hod a
brain far beyond that of all man-like apes.
In man. the average capacity of the skull
may be stated as 1.410 cubic centimetres
for the European.
Therefor. In the point of brain, tho crea
ture of Java wan neither a cibbwi nor a
man. It ia a middle-thing Just what sci
ence looked for when speaking of the miss
ing link.
weighted with 5 tons or stone. When
tho work 'was commenced many, attracted
by the offer of excellent pay, came to ap
ply for tha positions. Most of them listen h!
to the foils, glanced at the rapids and left.
Borne worked while the dam was being
built near the shore, but left as it poked
Its narrow nose out into the stream. To
day the most dangerous part of the work
la being carried on by French-Canadian
river men.
The work is at all times perilous, but the
climax is reached when Jacques Foisy
takes the soundings in advance of the
dam's course. The last soundings revested
a depth In the rapids of twenty-four feeC
Three beams were placed out in these
rapids, secured by ropes, and Fotsy, at
tired in his usual cutttume and without even
removing his overalls, leaped out upoti
them. If the ropes Bbould break. If he
should slip, if the beams should overturn,
and if one of those angry waves should
rise Just a Utile higher! But Foisy thinks
nothing of all this, but commences to lower
the iron bar that Is marked oft in feet and
Inches. Seizing this bar the current en
deavors to wrest it from his hands. I'nder
th most favorable conditions, and with
feet well pla.ited upon the firmest 1 ind,
to take the soundings of Niagara's rapids
would be a perilous task, but here stands
Foisy on three daucing timbers, lowering
tho rod much more at ease than th spec
tators on the dam above. Vigorously he
battles with the water and then tha bot
tom struck he marks the spot and lonps
lightly back to the crib. Then Mr. Thornley
finds that the iron bar has been sllphtly
bent by tho force of the watm-, which
rushes by at "he rato of twenty-five miles
an hour. Brooklyn Kasle.
Pointed Paragraphs
Usually tho right side of the market Is
the outside.
A wise man knows all he tells, but he
never tells all he knows.
A woman loves a man In proportion to
his ability to muko her angry.
Any man who attempts to dodge a bill
collector Is apt to be found out.
When a man's nose is as red as a beet
it's usually safe to bet that he is one.
If there Is anything more pitiful than an
effeminate man it Is a masculine woman.
In England a candidate stands for office,
but In this country ho has to hump himself
and run.
The thigh proves that the creature wu
at least a third larger than all fossil or
living gibbon opes. The Java creatura
was fully as large as the average man.
The teeth, belonging to the upper Jaw,
show features belonging to both ape and
man.
The crown is entirely that of man; tha
size and root arc apo-llke.
The last witness ia the upper thigh.
It gives the most startling testimony.
It is the upper thigh of a thing that
walked erect.
The upright walk of man has stamped It
self uplendidly Into his skeleton. Man's
upper thigh Is alrnont entirely straight.
Compare with this the skeleton of a gorilla
and you will find that the upper thigh Is
nut only short and thick but curved and
hollowed toward the Inside.
The bone of Java Is bent a little, but not
more so than happens occasionally with
a normal man; far different from the
Treat curvature of tho gorilla's thigh
There Is no doubt that this thing 'what
ever it was. walked like a man.
Plainly, gibbon and man were linked In
tho thing. And It was found In South Asia,
where the gibbons still live
Pithecanthropus erectus gives us the be
ginning of n great series of difficult prob
lems, as did the famous reptile-bird ar
chaeopteryx, of Solenhofen. in whose case
prr:fly PU",,n "ns arose long
after the question as to what It was had
been settled. a
For instance, we must still ascertain ex-
which i8 " f the P-H
hkh the ape-man wan found. It may
be that we shall find them to be of a
period from which wo a.readv n
genuine human skulls found In other locall-
At present our estimates place It loosely
from the end of the tertiary period to t
rllest glacial period. And certain Euro
peun finds of undoubted human bones
take us hack as far as that glacial period.
Miould It be ascertained that pithecan
thropus and the human remains of
Kurope's glacial time are contemporan
eous, a great Held of conjecture and re
search will have been opened. It would
appear then that the pithecanthropll of
Java were simply Isolated survivors.
Should It be proved, on the contrary,
that the Javanese deposits date back into
the tertiary period, says the tertiary plio
cene, thus placing the beginning of human
man into Rastern Asia, we would have
the problem before us of how the finished
product, man. could have wandered and
spread so soon thereafter from the Sunda
Straits to France on one side and to South
America on the other.
Meantime men are digging busily In Java
for a complete or measurably complete
skeleton of pithecanthropus. Chance holds
the key. We must wait In patience.
In Solenhofen, which furnished the world
thst magnificent reptile-bird the mls.sing
link between lizard and bird sixteen years
elapsed between the first find and the sec
ond; and since then twenty-five years have
passed without a third find.
But we have the one great fact. A bright
tight has been shed on tho chain from
gibbon to man. To work backward from
the gibbon is not so difficult.
Kecent anatomical proofs show that tha
line of descent from the lower mammals to
the monkey pn;s?s through a half-monkey
that still survives the so-called forest
ghost" or "ghost-makl," which Inhabits
Sunda Islands today.
Fossil relatives of this animal have been
found in North America In the deposits
from the first third of tertiary time. In
those days the line of man was repre
sented by these mammals, much lower la
order than the present true monkeys. And
from the half-monkey the descent probably
is to be traced to th: a. ill lower Insectlver
ous mammals. jch as the good, honest
porcupines, whfch certainly do not appear
at first Bight to be "ancestors."
And ancestors of the porcupines, away
back In the cretaceous or chalk periods,
lead again to the mirsuplal animals such
as the kangaroo. At last we find tha duck
bill laying eggs tojay like a lizard.
And this tikes us back to the reptiles
and amphiUans. The amphibian ascended
from the fish through the Ilz.ird-fl.-h. From
tha fish the thread leads back to the realm
of the things without backbones, the In
vertebrates. And that takes us back to tha
single cell or unl-cell, the first cre.iture.
Men complain Eometlmes that the glow
of romance pales wl.h tho advance of
rclcnce.
I feel tha. se'ence enrl.hes the world with
romance more and more In the "be-1 s rue.
Kvcr more glowing, ever more wonderful,
does the picture boecm: Kver more might
ily knowledge arouses us, takes us In a
flight through vast tlm?, bearj us through
fairy-like p'.aces.
An! when the spirit of knowledge has
made, seers of us, we perceive behind tha
splintered, fossil bones of Java the sums
treat power that thrills the devout rtader
of tho story of Kdcu: behind pithecan
thropus erectus of Java th-ra towerj, half
unveiled, the greatest of ull mysteries, tha
ni'8tcry of the bring of man, of tha ap
pearance of the first conscious brain; tha
mystery of ourselves.
WHJIEXM BOELSCHE.
