Look Upward, Chimp

Dr. Sydney W. Britton of the University of Virginia kept chimpanzees around the house. He treated them well and grew quite fond of them. His object: to learn from the chimps why their distant human cousins have big brains and walk on their hind legs. Last week, at a meeting of the National Society for Medical Research in San Francisco, he told his theory:

The Britton chimps normally walked on all fours, standing upright only when excited or when they wanted to look around. But they could be made to stand upright for as much as eight hours by being put on a tilting table. The erect posture caused a greater flow of blood to the brain. Dr. Britton believes that when man's apelike, allfours ancestors started to walk on their hind legs, their brains grew bigger.

What started the ape men walking on their hind legs? Dr. Britton installed a female chimp named Bonga on a small island in a lake at Charlottesville, Va. Bonga could not swim and therefore had to make the best of it, even though the Virginia winter soon brought snow. When there was snow on the ground, Bonga walked upright, apparently to keep her hands and belly from getting cold and wet.

This thinks Dr. Britton, may be how it all started. When glaciers crept down a million years ago, chilling the climate, the ape men walked upright to keep their hands out of the snow. Their brains got more blood and grew bigger. Then the ape men, according to the Britton theory, started the long intellectual climb that turned them into men.

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