A Scientist's quest for four of "perhaps the most valuable teeth in the world" ended in their discovery in schoolboy's trouser pocket. Gert Terblanche, the schoolboy, digging in an outcrop of rock at Kromdraai, near Sterkfontein, South Africa, had found a skull which Sir Arthur Keith told the British Association was of "outstanding importance in the evolution of man and ape."
How his find became known to the world of science is described by Dr. R. Broom, of the Transvaal Museum, Pretoria, in an article in a recent issue of "Nature" Dr. Broom says he was shown the skull by a Mr. Barlow, at Sterkfonteh, to whom the boy had given it.
"Went to School Recognizing that some of the teeth had recently been broken off, I had to hunt up the schoolboy, writes Dr. Broom. I went to his home two miles off and found that he was at school another two miles away.
At the school I found the boy with four of what are perhaps the most valuable teeth in the world in his trouser pocket.
He told me that there were more bits of the skull on the hillside. After school he took me to the place and I gathered every scrap I could find.
Pieced together, there is now the nearly perfect palate with most of the teeth and most of the lower half of the skull of a new type of anthropoid. It will be known as the Kromdraai skull.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.