/sci/ - Science & Math

He found in Java a piece of
a skull, seeming by its contour to be smaller than the human. Somewhere
near it he found an upright thigh-bone and in the same scattered fashion
some teeth that were not human. If they all form part of one creature,
which is doubtful, our conception of the creature would be almost
equally doubtful. But the effect on popular science was to produce a
complete and even complex figure, finished down to the last details of
hair and habits. He was given a name as if he were an ordinary
historical character. People talked of Pithecanthropus as of Pitt or Fox
or Napoleon. Popular histories published portraits of him like the
portraits of Charles the First and George the Fourth. A detailed drawing
was reproduced, carefully shaded, to show that the very hairs of his
head were all numbered No uninformed person looking at its carefully
lined face and wistful eyes would imagine for a moment that this was the
portrait of a thigh-bone; or of a few teeth and a fragment of a cranium.