But these investigations all fade into relative insignificance compared with the sensation caused by the discovery made by Dr. Dubois in Java in 1891. Dr. Eugene Dubois was a graduate of Leyden University who, besides having some knowledge of geology and palæontology, had attained distinction in anatomy. Between 1890 and 1896 he was stationed in Java, as surgeon to the Dutch Indian army, and by order of the Government he conducted some explorations with a view to determining the fossil fauna which had been discovered in those parts many years before. While examining the beds attributed to the Pleistocene period below the dry season level of the Bengawan River, at Trinil, he found the teeth, calvarium, and femur of the now world-famous _Pithecanthropus erectus_. This was announced even in scientific journals as “The ‘Missing Link’ found at last.” Dubois published his account in Java in 1894, and since that date a vast amount of literature has accumulated round the subject, representing the three antagonistic points of view. Some, like Virchow, Krause, Waldeyer, Ranke, Bumüller, Hamann, and Ten Kate, claim a simian origin for the remains; Turner, Cunningham, Keith, Lydekker, Rudolf Martin, and Topinard believed them to be human; while Dubois, Manouvrier, Marsh, Haeckel, Nehring, Verneau, Schwalbe, Klaatsch, and Duckworth ascribe them to an intermediate form. The last-mentioned sums up the evidence in these words: “I believe that in _Pithecanthropus erectus_ we possess the nearest likeness yet found of the human ancestor, at a stage immediately antecedent to the definitely human phase, and yet at the same time in advance of the simian stage.”[57] Footnote 57: “The lowest term of the human series yet discovered is represented by Pithecanthropus, and dates from some part of the Pleistocene epoch” (W. J. Sollas, _Science Progress_, 1908, p. 353). See also W. Volz, _Neues Jahrb. f. Mineral._, 1907. The English, as Dr. Dubois somewhat slyly noted, claimed the remains as human; while the Germans declared them to be simian; he himself, as a Dutchman, assigned them to a mixture of both. The geological horizon in which the remains of _Pithecanthropus erectus_ were discovered is still an open question. Of late opinion seems to tend towards regarding it as belonging to the early Pleistocene instead of the Pliocene, to which it was at first referred.[58] After reviewing all the evidence concerning Tertiary man, Professor Sollas concludes:—“We have now reached the end of this summary, and find ourselves precisely where we were, having obtained no evidence either for or against the existence of man in times previous to the great Ice Age” (_loc. cit._, p. 350). Footnote 58: