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OUR ORIGIN AS A SPECIES.

- Richard Owen, C.B., F.R.S.

Limiting the comparison to that on which the writer quoted bases his conclusions—apparently the superficial extent of the roof plate—its greater extent as compared with that of a gorilla equaling, probably, in weight the entire frame of the individual from the Neanderthal cave, is strongly significant of the superiority of size of brain in the cave dweller. The inner surface moreover indicates the more complex character of the soft organ on which it was moulded; the precious "gray substance" being multiplied by certain convolutions which are absent in the apes. But there is another surface which the unbiased zoologist finds it requisite to compare. In the human "calvarium" in question, the midline traced backward from the super-orbital ridge runs along a smooth track. In the gorilla a ridge is raised from along the major part of that tract to increase the surface giving attachment to the biting muscles. Such ridge in this position varies only in height in the female and the male adult ape, as the specimens in the British Museum demonstrate.

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