Fig. 102.—Karl von Zittel, 1839-1904.
The methods of collecting fossils in the field have been greatly developed. By means of spreading mucilage and tissue paper over delicate bones that crumble on exposure to the air, and of wrapping fossils in plaster casts for transportation, it has been made possible to uncover and preserve many structures which with a rougher method of handling would have been lost to science.
Fossil Man.—One extremely interesting section of palæontology deals with the fossil remains of the supposed ancestors of the present human race. Geological evidence establishes the great antiquity of man, but up to the present time little systematic exploration has been carried on with a view to discover all possible traces of fossil man. From time to time since 1840 there have been discovered in caverns and river-gravels bones which, taken together, constitute an interesting series. The parts of the skull are of especial importance in this kind of study, and there now exists in different collections a series containing the Neanderthal skull, the skulls of Spy and Engis, and the Java skull described in 1894 by Dubois. There have also been found recently (November, 1906) in deposits near Lincoln, Neb., some fossil human remains that occupy an intermediate position between the Neanderthal skull and the skulls of the lower representatives of living races of mankind. We shall have occasion to revert to this question in considering the evidences of organic evolution. (See page 364.)
The name palæontology was brought into use about 1830. The science affords, in some particulars, the most interesting field for biological research, and the feature of the reconstruction of ancient life and the determination of the lineage of living forms has taken a strong hold on the popular imagination. According to Osborn, the most important palæontological event of recent times was the discovery, in 1900, of fossil beds of mammals in the Fayûm lake-province of Egypt, about forty-seven miles south of Cairo. Here are embedded fossil forms, some of which have been already described in a volume by Charles W. Andrews, which Osborn says "marks a turning-point in the history of mammalia of the world." It is now established that "Africa was a very important center in the evolution of mammalian life." It is expected that the lineage of several orders of mammalia will be cleared up through the further study of fossils from this district.
THE DOCTRINE OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION