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EVIDENCE
AS TO
MAN'S PLACE IE" N^ATURE.
BY
THOMAS H. HUXLEY, F.R.S., F.L.S.,
PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY IN THE JERMYN STREET SCHOOL OF MINES.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
443 & 445 BEOADWAY.
1863.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
I. — On the Natural History of the Man-Like Apes, . 9
n. — On the Relations op Man to the Lower Animals, . 71
III. — On some Fossil Remains of Man, . . . .139
' ADYERTISEMEKT TO THE EEADER.
The greater part of the substance of the following
Essays has already been published in the form of Oral
Discourses, addressed to widely different audiences, dur-
ing the past three years.
Upon the subject of the second Essay, I delivered six
Lectures to the "Working Men in 1860, and two, to the
members of the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh in
1862. The readiness with which my audience followed
my arguments, on these occasions, encourages me to hope
that I have not committed the error, into which working
men of science so readily fall, of obscuring my meaning
by imnecessary technicalities : while, the length of the
period during which the subject, under its various aspects,
has been present to my mind, may suffice to satisfy the
Reader that, my conclusions, be they right or be they
wrong, have not been formed hastily or emmciated
crudely.
T. H. H.
London: January^ 1863.
ON THE NATUEAL HISTORY OF THE
MAK-LIKE APES.
Ancient traditions, when
of modern investigation,
into mere dreams : but
dream turns out to have
Fig. 1. — Simige magnatum delicise. — De Bry, 1598.
more nearly than they in
1*
tested by the severe processes
commonly enough fade away
it is singular how often the
been a half-waking one, pre-
saging a reality.
Ovid foreshad-
owed the dis-
coveries of the
geologist : the
Atlantis was an
imagination, but
Columbus found
a western world :
and though the
quaint forms of
Centaurs and
100^ Satyrs have an
existence only in
the .realms of
art, creatures ap-
proaching man
essential structure, and yet as
10 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
thorougUy brutal as the goat's or horse's half of the
mythical compound, are now not only known, but no-
torious.
I have not met with any notice of one of these Man-
like Apes of earlier date than that contained in Piga-
fetta's " Description of the kingdom of Congo," "^ drawn
up from the notes of a Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lo-
pez, and published in 1598. The tenth chapter of this
work is entitled " De Animalibus quae in hac provincia
reperiuntur," and contains a brief passage to the effect
that " in the Songan country, on the banks of the Zaire,
there are multitudes of apes, which afford great delight
to the nobles by imitating human gestures." As this
might apply to almost any kind of apes, I should have
thought little of it, had not the brothers De Bry, whose
engravings illustrate the work, thought fit, in their elev-
enth " Argumentum," to figure two of these " Simiae
magnatum delicise." So much of the plate as contains
these apes is faithfully copied in the woodcut (fig. 1), and
it will be observed that they are tail-less, long-armed,
and large-eared ; and about the size of Chimpanzees. It
may be that these apes are as much figments of the
imagination of the ingenious brothers as the winged, two-
legged, crocodile-headed dragon which adorns the same
plate ; or, on the other hand, it may be that the artists
have constructed their drawings from some essentially
faithful description of a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee. And,
in either case, though these figures are worth a passing
* Regnum Congo : hoc est Vera Descriptio Eegni Africani quod tam
AB iNCOLis QUAM LusiTANis CoNGUs APPELLATUR, per PhUippum Pigafettam,
olim ex Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, num Latio sermone
donata ab August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconibus et imaginibus rerum memora-
bilium quasi vivis, opera et industria Joan. Theodori et Joan. Israelis de Bry,
fratrum exornata. Francofurti, mdxctiii.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 11
notice, the oldest trustworthy and definite accounts of
any animal of this kind date from the 17th century, and
are due to an Englishman.
The first edition of that most amusing old book,
" Purchas his Pilgrimage," was published in 1613, and
therein are to be found many references to the statements
of one whom Purchas terms " Andrew Battell (my neere
neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served under
Manuel Silvera Perera, Governor under the King of
Spaine, at his city of Saint Paul, and with him Avent
farre into the countrey of Angola ; " and again, " my
friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in the kingdom of
Congo many yeares," and who, "upon some quarell be-
twixt the Portugals (among whom he was a sergeant of
a band) and him, lived eight or nine moneths in the
woods." From this weather-beaten old soldier, Purchas
was amazed to hear " of a kinde of Great Apes, if they
might so bee termed, of the height of a man, but twice
as bigge in feature of their limmes, with strength pro-
portionable, haii'ie all over, otherwise altogether like men
and women in their whole bodily shape.* They lived
on such wilde fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and
in the night time lodged on the trees."
This extract is, however, less detailed and clear in its
statements than a passage in the third chapter of the sec-
ond part of another work — " Purchas his Pilgrimes," pub-
lished in 1625, by the same author — which has been often,
though hardly ever quite rightly, cited. The chapter is
entitled, " The strange adventures of Andrew Battell, of
Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to Angola,
who lived there and in the adioning regions neere eight-
eene yeeres." And the sixth section of this chapter is
* " Except this that their legges had no calves."— [Ed. 1626.] And in a
marginal note, " These great apes are called Pongo's."
12 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
lieaded — "Of the Provinces of Bongo, Calongo, May-
ombe, Manikesocke, Motimbas : of the Ape Monster
Pongo, their hunting : Idolatries ; and divers other obser-
vations."
" Tliis province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth
upon Bongo, and toward the north npon Mayombe,
which is nineteen leagues from Longo along the coast.
" This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves,
so overgrowne that a man may travaile twentie days in
the shadow without any sunne or heat. Here is no
kind of corne nor graine, so that the people liveth onely
upon plantanes and roots of sundrie sorts, very good ;
and nuts ; nor any kinde of tame cattell nor hens.
" But they have great store of elephant's flesh, which
they greatly esteeme, and many kinds of wild beasts ;
and great store of fish. Here is a great sandy bay, two
leagues to the northward of Cape Negro,* which is the
port of Mayombe. Sometimes the Portugals lade log-
wood in this bay. Here is a great river, called Banna :
in the winter it hath no barre, because the generall
winds cause a great sea. But when the sunne hath his
south declination, then a boat may goe in ; for then it is
smooth because of the raine. This river is very great,
and hath many ilands and people dwelling in them.
The woods are so covered with baboones, monkies, apes
and parrots, that it will feare any man to travaile in
them alone. Here are also two kinds of monsters, which
are common in these woods, and very dangerous.
" The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo
in their language, and the lesser is called Engeco. This
Pongo is in all proportion like a man ; but that he is
more like a giant in stature than a man ; for he is very
* Purchas' note. — Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of the line.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 13
tall, and hath a man's face, hollow-eyed, with long hah'e
upon his browes. His face and eares are without haire,
and his hands also. His bodie is full of haire, but not
very thicke ; and it is of a dunnish colour.
" He differ eth not from a man but in his legs ; for
they have no calfe. Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs,
and carrieth his hands clasped in the nape of his necke
when he goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in the
trees, and build shelters for the raine. They feed upon
fruit that they find in the woods, and upon nuts, for
they eate no kind of flesh. They cannot speake, and
have no understanding more than a beast. The people
of the countrie, when they travaile in the woods, make
fires where they sleepe in the night ; and in the morn-
ing when they are gone, the Pongoes will come and sit
about the fire till it goeth out ; for they have no under-
standing to lay the wood together. They goe many
together, and kill many negroes that travaile in the
woods. Many times they fall upon the elephants wliich
come to feed where they be, and so beate tliem with
their clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will
runne roaring away from them. Those Pongoes are
never taken alive because they are so strong, that ten
men cannot hold one of them ; but yet they take many
of their young ones with poisoned arrowes.
" The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly
with his hands fast clasped about her, so that when the
countrie people kill any of the females they take the
young one, which hangeth fast upon his mother.
" When they die among themselves, they cover the
dead with great heaps of boughs and wood, which is
commonly foim,d in the forest." *
* Purchas' marginal note, p. 982 : — " The Pongo is a giant ape. He told
me in conference with him, that one of these Pongoes tooke a negro boy of
14 THE NATURAL HISTOEY OF
It does not appear difficult to identify tlie exact re-
gion of which Battell speaks. Longo is doubtless the
name of the place usually spelled Loango on our maps.
Mayombe still lies some nineteen leagues northward from
Loango, along the coast ; and Cilongo or Kilonga, Mani-
kesocke, and Motimbas are yet registered by geographers.
The Cape JS'egro of Battell, however, cannot be the mod-
ern Cape J^egro in 16° S., since Loango itself is in 4° S.
latitude. On the other hand, the " great river called
Banna " corresponds very well with the " Camma" and
" Fernand Yas," of modern geographers, which form a
great delta on this part of the African coast.
]^ow this " Camma " country is situated about a de-
gree and a half south of the Equator, while a few miles
to the north of the line lies the Gaboon, and a degree
or so north of that, the Money Eiver — both well known
to modern naturalists as localities where the largest of
man-like Apes has been obtained. Moreover, at the
present day, the word Engeco, or N'schego, is applied
by the natives of these regions to the smaller of the two
great Apes which inhabit them ; so that there can be
no rational doubt that Andrew Battell spoke of that
which he knew of his own knowledge, or, at any rate,
by immediate report from the natives of Western Africa.
The "Engeco," however, is that "other monster" whose
nature Battell " forgot to relate," while the name " Bon-
go " — applied to the animal whose characters and habits
are so fully and carefully described — seems to have died
his which lived a moneth with them. For they hurt not those which they
surprise at unawares, except they looke on them ; which he avoyded. He
said their highth was like' a man's, but their biguesse twice as great. I saw
the negro boy. What the other monster should be he hath forgotten to re->
late ; and these papers came to my hand since his death, which, otherwise, in
my often conferences, I might have learned. Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy
Pongo killers mentioned."
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 15
out, at least in its primitive form and signification. In-
deed, there is evidence that not only in BattelFs time,
but up to a very recent date, it was used in a totally
different sense from that in which he employs it.
For example, the second chapter of Purchas' work,
which I have just quoted, contains "A Description and
Historicall Declaration of the Golden Kingdom of Guinea,
&c. &c. Translated from the Dutch, and compared also
with the Latin," wherein it is stated (p. 986) that —
" The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles north-
ward from Rio de Angra, and eight miles northward
from Cape de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape Lopez), and is
right under the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles
from St. Thomas, and is a great land, well and easily to
be knowne. At the mouth of the river there lieth a
sand, three or foure fathoms deepe, whereon it beateth
mightily with the streame which runneth out of the
river into the sea. This river, in the mouth thereof, is
at least foure miles broad ; but when you are about the
Hand called Pmigo, it is not above two miles broad. .
. . On both sides the river there standeth many trees.
The Hand called Pongo^ which hath a
monstrous high hill."
The French naval officers, whose letters are appended
to the late M. Isidore Geoff. Saint Hilaire's excellent
essay on the Gorilla,* note in similar terms the width of
the Gaboon, the trees that line its banks down to the
water's edge, and the strong current that sets out of it.
They describe two islands in its estuary ; — one low, called
Perroquet ; the other high, presenting three conical hills,
called Coniquet ; and one of them, M. Franquet, expressly
states that, formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was called
* Archives du Museum, Tome X.
16
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
Ho7no Syhestris.
OranQ Outang.
Meni-PongOy meaning tlierebj Lord of Pongo / and that
the N^Pongues (as, m agreement with Dr. Savage, he
affirms the natives call themselves) term the estnary of the
Gaboon itself N^ Pongo.
It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to misunder-
stand their ap]3lications of words to things, that one is
at first inclined to suspect Battell of having confounded
the name of this region, where his " greater monster "
still abounds, with the name of the animal itself. But
he is so right about other matters (including the name
of the " lesser monster,") that one is loth to suspect the
old traveller of error ; and, on the other hand, we shall
find that a voyager of a hundred years' later date speaks
of the name " Boggoe," as applied to a great Ape, by
the inhabitants of quite
another part of Africa —
Sierra Leone.
But I must leave this
question to be settled by
philologers and travel-
lers ; and I should hardly
have dwelt so long upon
it except for the curious
part played by this word
^ Pongo ' in the later his-
tory of the man-likeApes.
The generation which
succeeded Battell saw the
first of the man-like Apes
which was ever brought
to Europe, or, at any
■ rate, whose visit found a
historian. In the third book of Tulpius' " Observationes
Medicse," published in 1641, the 56th chapter or section
Fig. 2.— The Orang of Tulpius, 1641.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 17
is devoted to what lie calls Satymis indicus " called by
the Indians Orang-autang, or Man-of-the-Woods, and by
the Africans Qnoias Morron." He gives a very good
figui-e, evidently from the life, of the specimen of this
animal, " nostra memoria ex Angola delatnm," presented
to Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. Tnlpins says it
was as big as a child of three years old, and as stout as
one of six years: and that its back was covered with
black hair. It is plainly a young Chimpanzee.
In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asiatic,
man-like Apes became known, but at first in a very
mythical fashion. Thus Bontius (1658) gives an alto-
gether fabulous and ridiculous account and figure of an
animal which he calls " Orang-outang " ; and though he
says " vidi Ego cujus eflSgiem hie exhibeo," the said effi-
gies (see fig. 6 for Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a
very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and with pro-
portions and feet wholly human. The judicious English
anatomist, Tyson, was justified in saying of this descrip-
tion by Bontius, " I confess I do mistrust the whole repre-
sentation."
It is to the last mentioned writer, and his coadjutor
Cowper, that we owe the first account of a man-like ape
which has any pretensions to a scientific accuracy and
completeness. The treatise entitled, Orang-outang^ sive
Homo Sylvest/pis / or the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared
with that of a Monlcey^ an Ape^ an^ a Man^^ published
by the Royal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work of re-
markable merit, and has, in some respects, served as a
model to subsequent inquirers. This "Pygmie," Tyson
tells us, " was brought from Angola, in Africa ; but was
first taken a great deal higher up the coimtry ; " its hair
" was of a coal-black colour, and strait," and " when it
went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas awkwardly ; not
18
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
placing the palm of the hand flat to the ground, but it
walk'd upon its knuckles, as I observed it to do when
weak and had not strength enough to support its body."
— " From the top of the head to the heel of the foot, in
a strait line, it measured twenty-six inches."
Figs. 3 & 4. — The ' Pygmie' reduced from Tyson's figures 1 and 2, 1699.
These characters, even without Tyson's good figures
(figs. 3 and 4), would have been sufficient to prove his
" Pygmie "to be a young Chimpanzee. But the oppor-
tunity of examining the skeleton of the very animal
Tyson anatomised having most unexpectedly presented
itself to me, I am able to bear independent testimony to
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 19
its being a veritable Troglodytes niger^ though still
very young. Although fully appreciating the resem-
blances between his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no
means overlooked the difierences between the two, and he
concludes his memoir by summing up first, the points in
which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie more resembled a
Man than Apes and Monkeys do," under forty-seven dis-
tinct heads ; and then giving, in thirty-four similar brief
paragraphs, the respects in which " the Ourang-outang or
Pygmie differed from a Man and resembled more the Ape
and Monkey kind."
After a careful survey of the literature of the subject
extant in his time, our author arrives at the conclusion
that his " Pygmie " is identical neither with the Orangs
of Tulpius and Bon tins, nor with the Quoias Morrou of
Dapper (or rather of Tulpius), the Barris of d'Arcos, nor
with the Pongo of Battell ; but that it is a species of ape
probably identical with the Pygmies of the Ancients, and,
says Tyson, though it " does so much resemble a Man
in many of its parts, more than any of the ape kind, or
any other cmimal in the world, that I know of : yet by no
means do I look upon it as the product of a mixt genera-
tion — 'tis a Brute-Animal sui generis^ and a particular
sjpecies of AjpeP
The name of "Chimpanzee," by which one of the
African Apes is now so well known, appears to have
* I am indebted to Dr. "Wright, of Cheltenham, whose paleontologieal
labours are so well known, for bringing this interesting relic to my knowledge.
Tyson's granddaughter, it appears, married Dr. Allardyce, a physician of re-
pute in Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, the skeleton of the
'Pygmie.' Dr. Allardyce presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, and,
through the good offices of my friend Dr. Wright, the authorities of the Mu-
seum have permitted me to borrow, what is, perhaps, its most remarkable
ornament.
20
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
come into use in the first half of the eighteenth century,
but the only important addition made, in that period, to
our acquaintance with the man-like apes of Africa is con-
tained in " A New Voyage to Guinea," by William Smith,
which bears the date 1744.
In describing the animals of Sierra Leone, p. 51, this
writer says : —
" I shall next describe a strange sort of animal, called
by the white men in this country Mandrill,* but why it is
Fia. 5.— Facsimile of William Smith's figure of the " MandriU," 1Y44.
* "Mandrill" seems to signify a "man-like ape," the word "Drill" or
"Dril" having been anciently employed in England to denote an Ape or
Baboon. Thus in the fifth edition of " Blount's " Glossographia, or a Dic-
tionary interpreting the hard words of whatsoever language now used in our
refined English tongue . . . very useful for all such as desire to understand
what they read," published in 1681, I find, " Dril — a stone-cutter's tool where-
with he bores little holes in marble, &c. Also a large overgrown Ape and
Baboon, so called." "Drill" is used in the same sense in Charleton's
"Onomasticon Zoicon," 1668, The singular etymology of the word given by
Buffon seems hardly a probable one.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 21
SO called I know not, nor did I ever hear the name before,
neither can those who call them so tell, except it be for
their near resemblance of a human creatm-e, though noth-
ing at all like an Ape. Their bodies, when full grown,
are as big in circumference as a middle-sized man's — their
legs much shorter, and their feet larger ; their arms and
hands in proportion. The head is monstrously big, and
the face broad and flat, without any other hair but the
eyebrows ; the nose very small, the mouth wide, and the
lips thin. The face, which is covered by a white skin, is
monstrously ugly, being all over wrinkled as with old age ;
the teeth broad and yellow ; the hands have no more hair
than the face, but the same white skin, though all the rest
of the body is covered with long black hair, like a bear.
They never go upon all-fours, like apes ; but cry, when
vexed or teased, just like children
" When I was at Sherbro, one Mr. Cummerbus, whom
I shall have occasion hereafter to mention, made me a
present of one of these strange animals, which are called
by the natives Boggoe : it was a she-cub, of six months'
age, but even then larger than a Baboon. I gave it in
charge to one of the slaves, who knew how to feed and
nurse it, being a very tender sort of animal ; but when-
ever I went off the deck the sailors began to teaze it —
some loved to see its tears and hear it cry ; others hated
its snotty-nose ; one who hurt it, being checked by the
negro that took care of it, told the slave he was very fond
of his country-woman, and asked him if he should not like
her for a wife ? To which the slave very readily replied,
' No, this no my wife ; this a white woman — this fit wife
for you.' This unlucky wit of the negro's, I fancy, has-
tened its death, for next morning it was found dead under
the windlass."
Wilham Smith's ' Mandrill,' or ' Boggoe,' as his de-
22
THE NATTJKAL HISTORY OF
scription and figure testify, was, without doubt, a Chim-
panzee.
Linnaeus knew nothing, of his own observation, of the
man-like Apes of either Africa or Asia, but a dissertation
by his pupil Hoppius in the " Amoenitates Academicse "
(YI. ' Anthropomorpha ') may be regarded as embodying
his views respecting these animals.
The dissertation is illustrated by a plate, of which the
accompanying woodcut, fig. 6, is a reduced copy. The
figures are entitled (from left to right) 1. Troglodyia Bon-
tii ', 2. Lucifer Aldrovandi j 3. Satyrus Tuljpii j 4. Pyg-
mcBus Edwardi. The first is a bad copy of Bon tins' fic-
FiG. 6. — The Anthropomorpha of Linngeus.
titious ' Ourang-OLitang,' in whose existence, however,
Linnseus appears to have fully believed ; for in the stan-
dard edition of the " Systema Naturse," it is enumerated
as a second species of Homo ; " H. noctnrnus." Lucifer
Aldrovandi is a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus, ' De
Quadrupedibus digitatis viviparis,' Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645)
entitled " Cercopithecus formse raras Barbilms vocatus et
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 23
originem a cMna ducebat." Hoppins is of opinion that
this may be one of that cat-tailed people, of whom Nico-
laus Koping affirms that they eat a boat's crew, " guber-
nator navis " and all ! In the " Sjstema naturae" Linnesns
calls it in a note, Homo caudatus^ and seems inclined to
regard it as a third species of man. According to Tem-
minck, Satyrics Tulpii is a copy of the figure of a Chim-
panzee published by Scotin in 1Y38, which I have not
seen. It is the Satyr us indicus of the " Systema Naturae,"
and is regarded by Linnseus as possibly a distinct species
from Satyrus sylvestris. The last, named Pygmceus Ed-
wardi^ is copied from the figure of a young " Man of the
Woods," or true Orang-Utan, given in Edwards' ' Glean-
ings of Natural History,' (1758).
Bufibn was more fortunate than his great rival. I^ot
only had he the rare opportunity of examining a young
Chimpanzee in the living state, but he became possessed
of an adult Asiatic man-like Ape — the first and the last
adult specimen of any of these animals brought to Europe
for many years. With the valuable assistance of Dauben-
ton, Buffon gave an excellent description of this creature,
which, from its singular proportions, he termed the long-
armed Ape, or Gibbon. It is the modern Hylolates lar.
Thus when, in 1766, Bufibn wrote the fourteenth vol-
ume of his great work, he was personally familiar with the
young of one kind of African man-like Ape, and with the
adult of an Asiatic species — while the Orang-Utan and
the Mandrill of Smith were known to him by report.
Furthermore, the Abbe Prevost had translated a good
deal of Purchas' Pilgrims into French, in his ' Histoire
generale des Yoyages' (1748), and there Bufibn found a
version of Andrew Batt ell's account of the Pongo and the
Engeco. All these data BufiPbn attempts to weld together
into harmony in his chapter entitled " Les Orang-outangs
24 THE NATURAli HISTOEY OF
ou le Pongo et le Jocko." To this title the following note
is appended : —
" Orano--outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales : Poiigo- nom de
cet animal a Lowando Province de Congo.
"Jocko Enjocko, nom de cet animal a Congo que nous avons adopte.
En est I'article que nous avons retranche."
Thus it was that Andrew Battell's " Engeco " became
metamorj)hosed into " Jocko," and, in the latter shape,
was spread all over the world, in consequence of the ex-
tensive popularity of Buffon's works. The Abbe Prevost
and Buffon between them however, did a good deal more
disfio-urement to Battell's sober account than ' cutting: off
an article.' Thus Battell's statement that the Pongos
" cannot speake, and have no understanding more than a
beast," is rendered by Buffon " qu'il ne pent parler
quoiquHl ait jdus d^ entendement que les autres ani-^
maux / " and again, Purchas' affirmation, " He told me
in conference with him, that one of these Pongos tooke a
negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them," stands
in the French version, " un pongo lui enleva un petit
negre qui passa un cm entier dans la societe de ces ani-
maux."
After quoting the account of the great Pongo, Buffon
justly remarks, that all the ' Jockos ' and ' Orangs ' hith-
erto brought to Europe were young ; and he suggests that,
in their adult condition, they might be as big as the Pongo
or ' great Orang ; ' so that, provisionally, he regarded the
Jockos, Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species. And
perhaps this was as much as the state of knowledge at the
time warranted. But how it came about that Buffon
failed to perceive the similarity of Smith's ' Mandrill ' to
his own ' Jocko,' and confounded the former with so to-
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 25
tally different a creature as the blue-faced Baboon, is not
so easily intelligible.
Twenty years later Buffon changed his opinion,* and
expressed his belief that the Orangs constituted a genus
with two species, — a large one, the Pongo of Battell, and
a small one, the Jocko : that the small one (Jocko) is the
East Indian Orang ; and that the young animals from Af-
rica, observed by himself and Tulpius, are simply young
Pongos.
In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Yosmaer,
gave, in 1778, a very good account and figure of a young
Orang, brought alive to Holland, and his countryman, the
famous anatomist, Peter Camper, published (1779) an
essay on the Orang-Utan of similar value to that of Tyson
on the Chimpanzee. He dissected several females and a
male, all of which, from the state of their skeleton and
their dentition, he justly supposes to have been young.
However, judging by the analogy of man, he concludes
that they could not have exceeded four feet in height in
the adult condition. Fui'thermore, he is very clear as to
the specific distinctness of the true East Indian Orang.
" The Orang," says he, " differs not only from the
Pigmy of Tyson and from the Orang of Tulpius by its
peculiar colour and its long toes, but also by its whole
external form. Its arms, its hands, and its feet are longer,
while the thumbs, on the contrary, are much shorter, and
the great toes much smaller in proportion." f And again,
" The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia, that of Bor-
neo, is consequently not the Pithecus, or tail-less Ape,
which the Greeks, and especially Galen, have described.
It is neither the Pongo nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of
* Histoire Naturelle, Suppl. tome 7eme, 1'189.
f Camper, (Eiwres, I., p. 56.
2
26 THE NATUKAL HISTOKY OF
Tulpius, nor the Pigmy of Tyson,^?^ is an animal of a
jpeculia/r species, as I shall prove in the clearest manner
by the organs of voice and the skeleton in the foUowino-
chapters." (1. c. p. 64).
A few years later, M. Eadermacher, who held a high
office in the Government of the Dutch dominions in In-
dia, and was an active member of the Batavian Society of
Arts and Sciences, published, in the second part of the
Transactions of that Society,* a Description of the Island
of Borneo, which was written between the years 1779 and
1781, and, among much other interesting matter, contains
some notes upon the Orang. The small sort of Orang-
utan, viz. that of Yosmaer and of Edwards, he says, is
found only in Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing,
Mampauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen some
fifty during his residence in the Indies ; but none ex-
ceeded 2J feet in length. The larger sort, often regarded
as chimaera, continues Radermacher, would, perhaps, long
have remained so, had it not been for the exertions of the
Resident at Eembang, M. Palm, who, on returning from
Landak towards Pontiana, shot one, and forwarded it to
Batavia in spirit, for transmission to Europe.
Palm's letter describing the capture runs thus : — ■
" Herewith I send your Excellency, contrary to all ex-
pectation (since long ago I offered more than a hundred
ducats to the natives for an Orang-Utan of four or five
feet high) an Orang which I heard of this morning about
eight o'clock. For a long time we did our best to take
the frightful beast alive in the dense forest about half way
to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so anxious were we
not to let him escape ; but it was necessary to take care
he did not revenge himself, as he kept continually break-
* Yerhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede Deel,
Derde Druk. 1826.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 27
ing off heavy pieces of wood and green branches, and
dashing them at us. This game lasted till four o'clock in
the afternoon, when we determined to shoot him ; in
which I succeeded very well, and indeed better than I ever
shot from a boat before ; for the bullet went just into the
side of his chest, so that he was not much damaged. We
got him into the prow still living, and bound him fast,
and next mornino- he died of his wounds. All Pontiana
came on board to see him when we arrived." Palm gives
his height from the head to the heel as 49 inches.
A very intelligent German' officer, Baron Yon Wurmb,
who at this time held a post in the Dutch East India ser-
vice, and was Secretary of the Batavian Society, studied
this animal, and his careful description of it, entitled
" Beschrijving van der Groote Born^sche Orang-outang
of de Oost-Indische Pongo," is contained in the same vol-
ume of the Batavian Society's Transactions. After Yon
Wurmb had drawn up his description he states, in a letter
dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 1781,* that the specimen was sent
to Europe in brandy to be placed in the collection of the
Prince of Orange ; " unfortunately," he continues, " we
hear that the ship has been wrecked." Yon Wurmb died
in the course of the year 1781, the letter in which this
passage occurs being the last he wrote ; but in his posthu-
mous papers, published in the fourth part of the Transac-
tions of the Batavian Society, there is a brief description,
with measurements, of a female Pongo four feet high.
Did either of these original specimens, on which Yon
Wurmb's descriptions are based, ever reach Europe ? It
is commonly supposed that they did ; but I doubt the fact.
For, appended to the memoir " De TOurang-outang," in
the collected edition of Camper's works. Tome I., pp.
* " Briefe des Herrn v, Wurmb und des H. Baron von Wollzogen.
Gotha, 1794."
28
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
64-66, is a note bj Camper himself, referring to Yon
Wnrmb's papers, and continuing thus : — " Heretofore, this
kind of ape had never been known in Europe. Kader-
macher has had the kindness to send me the skull of one
Fig. Y. — The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper, after Camper's
original sketches, as reproduced by Lucee.
of these animals, which measured fifty-three inches, or four
feet five inches, in height. I have sent some sketches of
it to M. Soemmering at Mayence, which are better calcu-
lated, however, to give an idea of the form than of the
real size of the parts."
These sketches have been reproduced by Fischer and
by Lucse, and bear date 1783, Soemmering having re-
ceived them in 1Y84. Had either of Yon Wurmb's speci-
mens reached Holland, they would hardly have been un-
known at this time to Camper, who, however, goes on to
say : — " It appears that since this, some more of these
monsters have been captured, for an entire skeleton, very
badly set up, which had been sent to the Museum of the
Prince of Orange, and which I saw only on the 27th of
June, 1784, was more than four feet high. I examined
• THE MAN-LIKE APES. 29
this skeleton again on tlie 19th December, 1785, after it
had been excellently put to rights by the ingenionf Ony-
mus."
It appears evident, then, that this skeleton, which is
doubtless that which has always gone by the name of
Wnrmb's Pongo, is not that of the animal described by
him, though unquestionably similar in all essential points.
Camper proceeds to note some of the most important
features of this skeleton ; promises to describe it in detail
by-and-bye ; and is evidently in doubt as to the relation
of this great ' Pongo ' to his " petit Orang."
The promised further investigations were never carried
out ; and so it happened that the Pongo of Yon Wurmb
took its place by the side of the Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and
Orang as a fourth and colossal species of man-like Ape.
And indeed nothing could look much less like the Chim-
panzees or the Orangs, then known, than the Pongo ; for
all the specimens of Chimpanzee and Orang which had
been observed were small of stature, singularly human in
aspect, gentle and docile ; while Wurmb's Pongo was a
monster almost twice their size, of vast strength and
fierceness, and very brutal in expression ; its great pro-
jecting muzzle, armed with strong teeth, being further
disfigured by the outgrowth of the cheeks into fleshy
lobes.
Eventually, in accordance with the usual marauding
habits of the Eevolutionary armies, the ' Pongo ' skeleton
was carried away from Holland into France, and notices
of it, expressly intended to demonstrate its entire distinct-
ness from the Orang and its affinity with the baboons,
were given, in 1798, by Geoffi'oy St. Hilaire and Cuvier.
Even in Cuvier's " Tableau Elementaire," and in the
first edition of his great work, the " Regno Animal," the
^ Pongo ' is classed as a species of Baboon. However, so
30 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF •
early as 1818, it appears that Ciivier saw reason to alter
this o^nion, and to adopt the view suggested several years
before by Blnmenbach,^ and after him by Tilesius, that
the Bornean Pongo is simply an adult Orang. In 1824,
Rudolphi demonstrated, by the condition of the dentition,
more fully and completely than had been done by his pred-
ecessors, that the Orangs described up to that time were
all young animals, and that the skull and teeth of the
adult would probably be such as those seen in the Pongo
of Wurmb. In the second edition of the ' Regne Animal '
(1829), Cuvier infers, from the ' proportions of all the
parts ' and ' the arrangements of the foramina and sutures
of the head,' that the Pongo is the adult of the Orang-
utan, ' at least of a very closely allied species,' and this
conclusion was eventually placed beyond all doubt by
Professor Owen's Memoir published in the ' Zoological
Transactions ' for 1835, and by Temminck in his ' Monog-
raphies de Mammalogie.' Temminck's memoir is remark-
able for the completeness of the evidence which it affords
as to the modification which the form of the Orang under-
goes according to age and sex. Tiedemann first published
an account of the brain of the young Orang, while Sandi-
fort, Miiller and Schlegel, described the muscles and the
viscera of the adult, and gave the earliest detailed and
trustworthy history of the habits of the great Indian Ape
in a state of nature ; and as important additions have been
made by later observers, we are at this moment better ac-
quainted with the adult of the Orang-Utan, than with that
of any of the other greater man-like Apes.
It is certainly the Pongo of Wurmb ;•)' and it is as
* See Blumenbach, "Abbildungen Naturhistorichen Gegeustiinde," No. 12,
1810; and Tilesius, " Naturhistoriche Fruchte der ersten Kaiserlich-Rus-
sischen Erdumsegelung," p. 115, 1813.
f Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the question, whether there
be more than one species of Orang.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 31
certainly not the Pongo of Battell, seeing that the Orang-
utan is entirely confined to the great Asiatic islands of
Borneo and Sumatra.
And while the progress "of discovery thus cleared up
the history of the Orang, it also became established that
the only other man-like Apes in the eaitern world were
the various species of Gibbon — Apes of smaller stature,
and therefore attracting less attention than the Orangs,
though they are spread over a much wider range of
country, and are hence more accessible to observation.
Although the geographical area inhabited by the
' Pongo ' and ' Engeco ' of Battell is so much nearer to
Europe than that in which the Orang and Gibbon are
found, our acquaintance with the African Apes has been
of slower growth ; indeed, it is only within the last few
years that the truthful story of the old English adven-
turer has been rendered fully intelligible. It was not
until 1835 that the skeleton of the adult Chimpanzee be-
came known, by the publication of Professor Owen's
above-mentioned very excellent memoir " On the osteol-
ogy of the Chimpanzee and Orang," in the Zoological
Transactions — a memoir which, by the accuracy of its de-
scriptions, the carefulness of its comparisons, and the ex-
cellence of its figures, made an epoch in the history of our
knowledge of the bony framework, not only of the Chim-
panzee, but of all the anthropoid Apes.
By the investigations herein detailed, it became evi-
dent that the old Chimpanzee acquired a size and aspect
as different from those of the young known to Tyson, to
Buffon, and to Traill, as those of the old Orang from the
young Orang ; and the subsequent very important re-
searches of Messrs. Savage and Wyman, the American
32 THE NATIJEAL HISTORY OF
missionary and anatomist, have not only confirmed this
conclusion, but have added many new details.*
One of the most interesting among the many valuable
discoveries made by Dr. Thomas Savage is the fact, that
the natives in the Gaboon country at the present day,
apply to the ChiBipanzee a name — " Enche-eko " — which
is obviously identical with the " Engeko " of Battell ; a
discovery which has been confirmed by all later inquirers.
Battell's " lesser monster " being thus proved to be a veri-
table existence, of course a strong resumption arose that
his " greater monster," the ' Pongo,' would sooner or
later be discovered. And, indeed, a modern traveller,
Bowdich, had, in 1819, found strong evidence, among the
natives, of the existence of a second great Ape, called the
' Ingena,' " five feet high, and four across the shoulders,"
the builder of a rude house, on the outside of which it
slept.
In 1847, Dr. Savage had the good fortune to make an-
other and most important addition to our knowledge of
the man-like Apes ; for, being unexpectedly detained at
the Gaboon river, he saw in the house of the Rev. Mr.
Wilson, a missionary resident there, " a skull represented
by the natives to be a monkey-like animal, remarkable for
its size, ferocity, and habits." From the contour of the
skull, and the information derived from several intelligent
natives, ^' I was induced," says Dr. Savage, (using the
term Orang in its old general sense) " to beheve that it
belonged to a new species of Orang. I expressed this
opinion to Mr. Wilson, with a desire for further investiga-
* See " Observations on the external characters and habits of the Troglo-
dytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M. D., and on its organization, by Jeffries
Wyman, M. D.," Boston Journal of Natural History, Vol. IV. 1843-4; and
" External characters, habits, and osteology of Troglodytes Gorilla," by the
same authors, ibid. Vol. V. 1847.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 33
tion ; and, if possible, to decide the point by the inspec-
tion of a specimen alive or dead." The result of the com-
bined exertions of Messrs. Savage and Wilson was not
only the obtaining of a very full account of the habits of
this new creature, but a still more important service to sci-
ence, the enabling the excellent American anatomist al-
ready mentioned. Professor Wyman, to describe, from am-
ple materials, the distinctive osteological characters of the
new form. This animal was called by the natives of the
Gaboon " Enge-ena," a name obviously identical with the
"Ingena" of Bowdich ; and Dr. Savage arrived at the
conviction that this last discovered of all the great Apes
was the long-sought ' Pongo ' of Battell.
The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond doubt
— for not only does the ' Enge-ena ' agree with Battell's
" greater monster " in its hollow eyes, its great stature,
and its dun or iron-grey colour, but the only other man-
like Ape which inhabits these latitudes — the Chimpanzee
— is at once identified, by its smaller size, as the " lesser
monster," and is excluded from any possibility of being
the ^ Pongo,' by the fact that it is black and not dun, to
say nothing of the important circumstance ah'eady men-
tioned that it still retains the name of ' Engeko ' or ' En-
che-eko,' by which Battell knew it.
In seeking for a specific name for the ' Enge-ena,'
however, Dr. Savage wisely avoided the much misused
' Pongo ' ; but finding in the ancient Periplus of Hanno
the word " Gorilla " applied to certain hairy savage peo-
ple, discovered by the Carthaginian voyager in an island
on the African coast, he attached the specific name " Go-
rilla^^ to his new ape, whence arises its present well-
known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more cautious than
some of his successors, by no means identifies his ape with
Hanno's * wild men.' He merely says that the latter
2*
34 THE NATUKAL HISTORY OF
were " probably one of the species of the Orang ; " and I
quite agree with M. Brulle, that there is no ground for
identifying the modern ' Gorilla ' with that of the Cartha-
ginian admiral.
Since the memoir of Savage and "Wyman was pub-
lished, the skeleton of the Gorilla has been investigated
by Professor Owen and by the late Professor Duvernoy,
of the Jardin des Plantes, the latter having further sup-
plied a valuable account of the muscular system and of
many of the other soft parts ; while African missionaries
and travellers have confirmed and expanded the account
originally given of the habits of this great man-like Ape,
which has had the singular fortune of being the first to be
made known to the general world and the last to be scien-
tifically investigated.
Two centuries and a half have passed away since Bat-
tell told his stories about the ' greater ' and the ' lesser
monsters ' to Purchas, and it has taken nearly that time
to arrive at the clear result that there are four distinct
kinds of Anthropoids — ^in Eastern Asia, the Gibbons and
the Orangs ; in Western Africa, the Chimpanzees and the
Gorilla.
The man-like Apes, the history of whose discovery has
just been detailed, have certain characters of structure and
of distribution in common. Thus they all have the same
number of teeth as man — ^possessing four incisors, two
canines, four false molars, and six true molars in each
jaw, or 32 teeth in all, in the adult condition ; while the
milk dentition consists of 20 teeth — or four incisors, two
canines, and four molars in each jaw. They are what are
called catarrhine Apes — that is, their nostrils have a nar-
row partition and look downwards ; and, furthermore,
their arms are always longer than their legs, the differ-
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 35
ence being sometimes greater and sometimes less ; so that
if tlie fom' were arranged in the order of the length of
their arms in proportion to that of their legs, we should
have this series — Orang (If — 1), Gibbon (1^ — 1), Gorilla
(Ij — 1), Chimpanzee (lyV — 1). In all, the fore limbs are
tei'minated bj hands, provided with longer or shorter
thumbs ; while the great toe of the foot, always smaller
than in Man, is far more moveable than in him and can
be opposed, like a thmnb, to the rest of the foot. IS^one
of these apes have tails, and none of them possess the
cheek-pouches common among monkeys. Finally, they
are all inhabitants of the old world.
The Gibbons are the smallest, slenderest, and longest-
limbed of the man-like apes : their arms are longer in
proportion to their bodies than those of any of the other
man-like Apes, so that they can touch the ground when
erect ; their hands are longer than their feet, and they
are the only Anthropoids which possess callosities like the
lower monkeys. They are variously coloured. The
Orangs have arms which reach to the ankles in the erect
position of the animal ; their thumbs and great toes are
very short, and their feet are longer than their hands.
They are covered with reddish-brown hair, and the sides
of the face, in adult males, are commonly produced into
two crescentic, flexible excrescences, like fatty tumours.
The Chimpanzees have arms which reach below the
knees ; they have large thumbs and great toes, their
hands are longer than their feet, and their hair is black,
while the skin of the face is pale. The Gorilla, lastly, has
arms which reach to the middle of the leg, large thumbs,
and great toes, feet longer than the hands, a black face,
and dark-grey or dun hair.
For the purpose which 1 have at present in view, it is
unnecessary that I should enter into any further minutiae
36 THE NATUKAL HISTORY OF
respecting the distinctive characters of the genera and
species into which these man-like Apes are divided by
naturalists. Suffice it to say, that the Orangs and the
Gibbons constitute the distinct genera, Simla and Hylo-
hates ' while the Chimpanzees and Gorillas are by some
regarded simply as distinct species of one genus, Troglo-
dytes; by others as distinct gQUQH^— Troglodytes being
reserved for the Chimpanzees, and Gorilla for the Enge-
ena or Pongo.
Sound knowledge respecting the habits and mode of
life of the man-like Apes has been even more difficult of
attainment than correct information regarding their struc-
ture.
Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found physic-
ally, mentally, and morally qualified to wander unscathed
through the tropical wilds of America and of Asia ; to
form magnificent collections as he wanders ; and withal
to think out sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his
collections : but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the
dense forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which consti-
tute the favourite habitation of the Orang, the Chimpan-
zee, and the Gorilla, present difficulties of no ordinary
magnitude : and the man who risks his life by even a
short visit to the malarious shores of those regions may
well be excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers of
the interior ; if he contents himself with stimulating the
industry of the better seasoned natives, and collecting and
collating the more or less mythical reports and traditions
with which they are too ready to supply him.
In such a manner most of the earlier accounts of the
habits of the man-like Apes originated ; and even now a
good deal of what passes current must be admitted to
have no very safe foundation. The best information we
THE MAN-LIKE /J»ES. 37
possess is that, based almost wholly on direct European
testimony, respecting the Gibbons ; the next best evidence
relates to the Orangs ; while our knowledge of the habits
of the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla stands much in need
of support and enlargement by additional testimony from
instructed European eye-witnesses.
It will therefore be convenient in endeavouring to
form a notion of what we are justified in believing about
these animals, to commence with the best known man-like
Apes, the Gibbons and Orangs ; and to make use of the
perfectly reliable information respecting them as a sort of
criterion of the probable truth or falsehood of assertions
respecting the others.
Of the Gibbons, half a dozen species are found scat-
tered over the Asiatic islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo,
and through Malacca, Siam, Arracan, and an uncertain
extent of Hindostan on the main land of Asia. The
largest attain a few inches above three feet in height,
from the crown to the heel, so that they are shorter than
the other man-like Apes ; while the slenderness of their
bodies renders their mass far smaller in proportion even
to this diminished height.
Dr. Salomon Miiller, an accomplished Dutch natural-
ist, who lived for many years in the Eastern Archipelago,
and to the results of whose personal experience I shall
frequently have occasion to refer, states that the Gibbons
are true mountaineers, loving the slopes and edges of the
hills, though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of the
fig-trees. All day long they haunt the tops of the tall
trees ; and though, towards evening, they descend in
small troops to the open ground, no sooner do they spy a
man than they dart up the hillsides and disappear in the
darker valleys.
All observers testify to the prodigious volume of voice
38
THE NATUEAL HISTORY OF
possessed by these animals. According to the writer
whom I have jnst cited, in one of them, the Siamang,
Fig. 8. — A Gibbon {H. pileatus), after Wolf.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 39
" the voice is grave and penetrating, resembling the
sounds goek, goek, goek, goek, goek ha ha ha ha haaaaa,
and may be easily heard at a distance of half a league."
While the cry is being uttered, the great membranous bag
under the throat which communicates with the organ of
voice, the so-called " laryngeal sac," becomes greatly dis-
tended, diminishing again when the creature relapses into
silence.
M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of the Sia-
mang may be heard for miles — making the woods ring
again. So Mr. Martin* describes the cry of the agile
Gibbon as "over-powering and deafening" in a room,
and " from its strength, well calculated for resomiding
through the vast forests." Mr. "Waterhouse, an accom-
plished musician as well as zoologist, says, " The Gibbon's
voice is certainly much more powerful than that of any
singer I ever heard." And yet it is to be recollected that
this animal is not half the height of, and far less bulky in
proportion than, a man.
There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon
readily take to the erect posture. Mr. George Bennett,f
a very excellent observer, in describing the habits of a
male Hylobates syndactylus which remained for some
time in his possession, says : '' He invariably walks in the
erect posture when on a level surface ; and then the arms
either hang down, enabling him to assist himself with his-
knuckles ; or what is more usual, he keeps his arms up-
lifted in nearly an erect position, with the hands pendent
ready to seize a rope, and climb up on the approach of
danger or on the obtrusion of strangers. He walks rather
quick in the erect posture, but with a waddling gait, and
is soon run down if, whilst pursued, he has no opportunity
* " Man and Monkies," p. 423.
f "Wanderings in New South Wales, Vol. II. chap. viii. 1834.
40 TH3 NATURAL HISTORY OF
of escaping by climbing. . . . Wben lie walks in the
erect posture, he turns the leg and foot outwards, which
occasions him to have a waddling gait and to seem bow-
legged."
Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the Horlack
or Hooluk :
" They walk erect ; and when placed on the floor, or
in an open field, balance themselves very prettily by rais-
ing their hands over their head and slightly bending the
arm at the wrist and elbow, and then run tolerably fast,
rocking from side to side ; and, if urged to greater speed,
they let fall their hands to the ground, and assist them-
selves forward, rather jumping than running, still keeping
the body, however, nearly erect."
Somewhat different evidence, however, is given by
Dr. Win slow Lewis :*
" Their only manner of walking was on their posterior
or inferior extremities, the others being raised upwards to
preserve their equilibrium, as rope-dancers are assisted by
long poles at fairs. Their progression was not by placing
one foot before the other, but by simultaneously using
both, as in jumping." Dr. Salomon Miiller also states
that the Gibbons progress upon the ground by short series
of tottering jumps, effected only by the hind limbs, the
body being held altogether upright.
But, Mr. Martin, (1. c. p. 418) who also speaks from
direct observation, says of the Gibbons generally :
" Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits, and dis-
playing among the branches amazing activity, the Gib-
bons are not so awkward or embarrassed on a level surface
as might be imagined. They walk erect, with a waddling
or unsteady gait, but at a quick pace ; the equilibrium of
* Boston Joui'ual of Natural History, Vol. I. 1834.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 41
the body requiring to be kept up, either by touching the
ground with the knuckles, first on one side then on the
other, or by uplifting the arms so as to poise it. As with
the Chimpanzee, the whole of the narrow, long sole of the
foot is placed upon the ground at once and raised at once,
without any elasticity of step."
After this mass of concurrent and independent testi-
mony, it cannot reasonably be doubted that the Gibbons
commonly and habitually assume the erect attitude.
But level ground is not the place where these animals
can display their very remarkable and peculiar locomotive
powers, and that prodigious activity which almost tempts
one to rank them among flying, rather than among ordi-
nary climbing mammals.
Mr. Martin (1. c. p. 430) has given so excellent and
graphic an account of the movements of a Hylobates
agilis, living in the Zoological Gardens, in 1840, that I
will quote it in full :
" It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of
the quickness and graceful address of her movements :
they may indeed be termed aerial as she seems merely to
touch in her progress the branches among which she ex-
hibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands and arms
are the sole organs of locomotion ; her body hanging as if
suspended by a rope, suMained by one hand (the right, for
example), she launches herself, by an energetic movement,
to a distant branch, which she catches with the left hand ;
but her hold is less than momentary : the impulse for the
next launch is acquired : the branch then aimed at is at-
tained by the right hand again, and quitted instantane-
ously, and so on, in alternate succession. In this manner
spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are cleared, with the
greatest ease and uninterruptedly, for hours together,
without the slightest appearance of fatigue being mani-
42 THE NATURAL HISTOEY OF
fested ; and it is evident that, if more space could be al-
lowed, distances very greatly exceeding eighteen feet
would be as easily cleared ; so that Duvaucel's assertion
that lie has seen these animals launch themselves from one
branch to another, forty feet asunder, startHng as it is,
may be well credited. Sometimes, on seizing a branch in
her progress, she will throw herself by the power of one
arm only, completely round it, making a revolution with
such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and continue
her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular
to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the
impetus given by the rapidity and distance of her swing-
ing leaps would seem to require a gradual abatement of
her movements. In the very midst of her flight a branch
is seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic,
quietly seated on it, grasping it with her feet. As sud-
denly she again throws herself into action.
" The following facts will convey some notion of her
dexterity and quickness. A live bird was let loose in her
apartment ; she marked its flight, made a long swing to a
distant branch, caught the bird with one hand in her pas-
sage, and attained the branch with her other hand ; her
aim, both at the bird and at the branch, being as success-
ful as if one object only had engaged her attention. It
may be added that she instantly oit off the head of the
bird, picked its feathers, and then threw it down without
attempting to eat it.
" On another occasion this animal swung herself from
a perch, across a passage at least twelve feet wide, against
a window which it was thought would be immediately
broken : but not so ; to the surprise of all, she caught the
narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in
an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 43
again to the cage she kad left — a feat requii'ing not only
great strength, but the nicest precision."
The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, but
there is very good evidence that they will bite severely
when irritated— a female Hylobates. agilis havdng so se-
verely lacerated one man with her long canines, that he
died ; while she had injured others so much that, by way
of precaution, these formidable teeth had been filed down;
but, if threatened, she would still turn on her keeper.
The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to avoid
animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen by Mr.
Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live lizard. They
commonly drink by dipping their fingers in the liquid
and then licking them. It is asserted that they sleep in a
sitting posture.
Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females carry
their young to the waterside and there wash their faces,
in spite of resistance and cries. They are gentle and
afiectionate in captivity — full of tricks and pettishness,
like spoiled children, and yet not devoid of a certain con-
science, as an anecdote, told by Mr. Bennett (1. c. p. 156),
will show. It would appear that his Gibbon had a pecu-
liar inclination for disarranging things in the cabin.
Among these articles, a piece of soap would especially
attract his notice, and for the removal of this he had been
once or twice scolded. " One morning," says Mr. Ben-
nett, " I was writing, the ape being present in the cabin,
when casting my eyes towards him, I saw the little fellow
taking the soap. I watched him without his perceiving
that I did ,so : and he occasionally would cast a furtive
glance towards the place where I sat. I pretended to
write ; he, seeing me busily occupied, took the soap, and
moved away with it in his paw. When he had walked
44
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
half tlie length of the cabin, I^poke quietly, without
frightening him. The instant he found I saw him, he
walked back again, and deposited the soap nearly in the
same place from whence he had taken it. There was
Fig. 9. — An adult male Orang-Utan, after MuUer and Schlegel.
THE MAJSr-LIKE APES. 45
certainly sometliing more than instinct in tliat action : lie
evidently betrayed a consciousness of having done wrong
both by his first and last actions — and what is reason if
that is not an exercise of it ? "
The most elaborate account of the natural history of
the Oeang-Utan extant, is that given in the " Yerhande-
lingen over de Natuurlijke Geschiedenis der JNTeder-
landsche overzeesche Bezittingen (1839-45)," by Dr. Sal-
omon Miiller and Dr. Schlegel, and I shall base what I
have to say upon this subject almost entirely on their
statements, adding, here and there, particulars of interest
from the writings of Brooke, Wallace, and others.
The Orang-Utan would rarely seem to exceed four feet
in height, but the body is very bulky, measuring two-
thirds of the height in circumference.^
The Orang-Utan is found only in Sumatra and Bor-
neo, and is common in neither of these islands — in both
of which it occurs always in low, flat plains, never in the
mountains. It loves the densest and most sombre of the
forests, which extend from the sea-shore inland, and thus
is found only in the eastern half of Sumatra, where alone
* The largest Orang-IJtan, cited by Temminck, measured, when standing
upright, four feet ; but be mentions having just received news of the capture
of an Orang five feet three inches high. Schlegel and Miiller say that their
largest old male measured, upright, 1.25 Netherlands "el;" and from the
crown to the end of the toes, 1.5 el; the circumference of the body being
about 1 el. The largest old female was 1.09 el high, when standing. The
adult skeleton in the College of Surgeons' Museum, if set upright, would
stand 3 feet 6-8 in. from crown to sole. Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the
mean height of two Orangs. Of seventeen Orangs examined by Mr. Wallace,
the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. high, from the heel to the crown of the head. Mr.
Spencer St. John, however, in his " Life in the Forests of the Far East," tells
us of an Orang of " 5 ft. 2 in., measuring fairly from the head to the heel,"
15 in. across the face, and 12 in. round the wrist. It does not appear, how-
BYer, that Mr. St. John measured this Orang himself.
46 THE NATUKAL HISTORY OF
siicli forests occur, tliougli, occasionally, it strays over to
the western side.
On the other hand, it is generally distributed through
Borneo, except in the mountains, or where the population
is dense. In favourable places, the hunter may, by good
fortune, see three or four in a day.
Except in the pairing time, the old males usually live
by themselves. The old females, and the immature
males, on the other hand, are often met with in twos and
threes ; and the former occasionally have young with
them, though the pregnant females usually separate them-
selves, and sometimes remain apart after they have given
birth to their offspring. The young Orangs seem to re-
main unusually long under their mother's protection,
probably in consequence of their slow growth. While
climbing, the mother always carries her young against
her bosom, the young holding on by his mother's hair.**
At what time of life the Orang-Utan becomes capable of
propagation, and how long the females go with young, is
unknown, but it is probable that they are not adult until
they arrive at ten or fifteen years of age. A female which
lived for five years at Batavia, had not attained one-third
the height of the wild females. It is probable that, after
reaching adult years, they go on growing, though slowly,
and that they live to forty or fifty years. The Dyaks tell
of old Orangs, which have not only lost all their teeth,
but which find it so troublesome to climb, that they main-
tain themselves on windfalls and juicy herbage.
The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that marvel-
* See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant " Orang-Utan," in the " Annals *
of Natural History" for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided his interesting charge
with an artificial mother of buffalo-skin, but the cheat was too successful.
The infant's entire experience led it to associate teats with hair, and feeling
the latter, it spent its existence in vain endeavours to discover the former.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 47
loTis activity characteristic of the Gibbons. Hunger alone
seems to stir him to exertion, and when it is stilled, he
relapses into repose. When the animal sits, it curves its
back and bows its head, so as to look straight down on
the ground ; sometimes it holds on with its hands by a
higher branch, sometimes lets them hang phlegmatically
down by its side — and in these positions the Orang will
remain, for hours together, in the same spot, almost with-
out stirring, and only now and then giving utterance to
its deep, growling voice. By day,- he usually climbs from
one tree-top to another, and only at night descends to the
ground, and if then threatened with danger, he seeks ref-
uge among the underwood. "When not hunted, he re-
mains a long time in the same locality, and sometimes
stops for many days on the same tree — a firm place among
its branches serving him for a bed. It is rare for the
Orang to pass the night in the summit of a large tree,
probably because it is too windy and cold there for him ;
but, as soon as night draws on, he descends from the
height and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker
part, or in the leafy top of a small tree, among which he
prefers Mbong Palms, Pandani, or one of those parasitic
Orchids which give the primaeval forests of Borneo so
characteristic and striking an appearance. But wherever
he determines to sleep, there he prepares himself a sort of
nest : Kttle boughs and leaves are di-awn together round
the selected spot, and bent crosswise over one another ;
while to make the bed soft, great leaves of Ferns, of Or-
chids, of Pandanus fascimolaris^ Wijpa fruticans, &c., are
laid over them. Those which Miiller saw, many of them
being very fresh, were situated at a height of ten to twen-
ty-five feet above the ground, and had a circumference, on
the average, of two or three feet. Some were packed
many inches thick with Pandamis leaves ; others were
48 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
remarkable only for the cracked twigs, which, united in a
common centre, formed a regular platform. " The rude
hut^^ says Sir James Brooke, " which they are stated to
build in the trees, would be more properly called a seat or
nest, for it has no roof or cover of any sort. The facility
with which they form this nest is curious, and I had an
opportunity of seeing a wounded female weave the
branches together and seat herself, within a minute."
According to the Dyaks the Orang rarely leaves his
bed before the sun is well above the horizon and has dissi-
pated the mists. He gets up about nine, and goes to bed
again about five ; but sometimes not till late in the twilight.
He lies sometimes on his back ; or, by way of change,
turns on one side or the other, drawing his limbs up to
his body, and resting his head on his hand. When the
night is cold, windy, or rainy, he usually covers his body
with a heap of Pandanus^ Nijpa, or Fern leaves, like
those of which his bed is made, and he is especially care-
ful to wrap up his head in them. It is this habit of cover-
ing himself up which has probably led to the fable that
the Orang builds huts in the trees.
Although the Orang resides mostly amid the boughs
of great trees, during the daytime, he is very rarely seen
squatting on a thick branch as other apes and particularly
the Gibbons, do. The Orang, on the contrary, confines him-
self to the slender leafy branches, so that he is seen right at
the top of the trees, a mode of life which is closely related
to the constitution of his hinder limbs, and especially to
that of his seat. For this is provided with no callosities,
such as are possessed by many of the lower apes, and even
by the Gibbons ; and those bones of the pelvis, which are
termed the ischia, and which form the solid framework of
the surface on which the body rests in the sitting posture,
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 49
are not expanded like those of the apes which possess cal-
losities, but are more like those of man.
An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously,* as, in this
act, to resemble a man more than an ape, taking great
care of his feet, so that injury of them seems to affect him
far more than it does other apes. Unlike the Gibbons,
whose forearms do the greater part of j;he work, as they
swing from branch to branch, the Orang never makes
even the smallest jump. In climbing, he moves alter-
nately one hand and one foot, or after having laid fast
hold with the hands, he draws up both feet together. In
passing from one tree to another, he always seeks out a
place where the twigs of both come close together, or in-
terlace. Even when closely pursued, his circumspection
is amazing : he shakes the branches to see if they will bear
him, and then bending an overhanging bough down by
throwing his weight gradually along it, he makes a bridge
from the tree he wishes to quit to the next.f
On the ground the Orang always goes laboriously and
shakily, on all fours. At starting he will run faster than
a man, though he may soon be overtaken. The very long
arms which, when he runs, are but little bent, raise the
body of the Orang remarkably, so that he assumes much
the posture of a very old man bent down by age, and
making his way along by the help of a stick. In walking,
the body is usually directed straight forward, unlike the
other apes, which run more or less obliquely ; except the
Gibbons, who in these, as in so many other respects, de-
part remarkably from their fellows.
* " They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey tribe, and their
motions are surprisingly awkward and uncouth." — Sir James Brooke, in the
"Proceedings of the Zoological Society," 1841.
f Mr. Wali.'ice's account of the progression of the Orang almost exactly
corresponds with this.
3
60 THE NATUEAL HISTORY OF
The Orang cannot put its feet flat on the ground, but
is supported upon their outer edges, the heel resting more
on the ground, while the curved toes partly rest upon the
ground by the upper side of their first joint, the two out-
ermost toes of each foot completely resting on this sm-face.
The hands are held in the opposite manner, their inner
edges serving as yie chief support. The fingers are then
bent out in such a manner that their foremost joints, es-
pecially those of the two innermost fingers, rest upon the
ground by their upper sides, while the point Of the free
and straight thumb serves as an aditional fulcrum.
The Orang never stands on its hind legs, and all the
pictures, representing it as so doing, are as false as the
assertion that it defends itself with sticks, and the like.
The long arms are of especial use, not only in climb-
ing, but in the gathering of food from boughs to which
the animal could not trust his weight. Figs, blossoms,
and young leaves of various kinds, constitute the chief nu-
triment of the Orang ; but strips of bamboo two or three
feet long were found in the stomach of a male. They are
not known to eat living animals.
Although, when taken young, the Orang-Utan soon
becomes domesticated, and indeed seems to court human
society, it is naturally a very wild and shy animal, though
apparently sluggish and melancholy. The Dyaks afiii-m,
that when the old males are wounded with arrows only,
they will occasionally leave the trees and rush raging
upon their enemies, whose sole safety lies in instant flight,
as they are sure to be killed if caught.*
* Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr. Waterhouse, published in the pro-
ceedings of the Zoological Society for 1841, says:— "On the habits of the
Orangs, as far as I have been able to observe them, I may remark that they
are as dull and slothful as can well be conceived, and on no occasion, when
pursuing them, did they move bo fast as to preclude my keeping pace with
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 61
But, thoiigli possessed of immense strength, it is rare
for tlie Orang to attempt to defend itself, especially when
attacked with fire-arms. On such occasions he endeavours
to hide himself, or to escape along the topmost branches
of the trees, breaking off and throwing down the boughs
as he goes. "Wlien wounded he betakes himself to the
highest attainable point of the tree, and emits a singular
cry, consisting at first of high notes, which at length
deepen into a low roar, not unlike that of a panther.
"While giving out the high notes the Orang thrusts out his
lips into a funnel shape ; but m uttering the low notes he
holds his mouth wide open, and at the same time the
great throat bag, or laryngeal sac, becomes distended.
According to the Dyaks, the only animal the Orang
measures his strength with is the crocodile, who occasion-
ally seizes him on his visits to the water side. But they
them easily through a moderately clear forest ; and even when obstructions
below (such as wading up to the neck) allowed them to get away some dis-
tance, they were sure to stop and allow me to come up. I never observed
the slightest attempt at defence, and the wood which sometimes rattled about
our ears was broken by their weight, and not thrown, as some persons repre-
sent. If pushed to extremity, however, the Pappan could not be otherwise
than formidable, and one unfortunate man, who, with a party, was trying to
catch a large one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides being severely bitten
on the face, whilst the animal finally beat oif bis pursuers and escaped."
Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, afiirms that he has several times observed
them throwing down branches when pursued. "It is true he does not throw
them at a person, but casts them down vertically ; for it is evident that a
bough cannot be thrown to any distance from the top of a lofty tree. In one
case a female Mias, on a durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes a con-
tinuous shower of branches and of the heavy, spined fruits, as large as 32-
pounders, which most effectually kept us clear of the tree she was on. She
could be seen breaking them off and throwing them down with every appear-
ance of rage, uttering at intervals a loud pumping grunt, and evidently mean-
ing mischief." — " On the habits of the Orang-Utan," Annals of Nat. History.
1856. This statement, it will be observed, is quite in accordance with that
contained in the letter of the Resident Palm quoted above (p. 16).
52 THE NATUEAL HISTOEY OF
say that the Orang is more than a match for his enemy,
and beats him to death, or rips up his throat by jDuUing
the jaws asunder !
Much of what has been here stated was probably de-
rived by Dr. Miiller from the reports of his Dyak hunters ;
but a large male, four feet high, lived in captivity under
his observation, for a month, and receives a very bad char-
acter.
'' He was a very wild beast," says Miiller, " of prodi-
gious strength, and false and wicked to the last degree.
If any one approached he rose up slowly with a low growl,
fixed his eyes in the direction in which he meant to make
his attack, slowly passed his hand betw^een the bars of his
cage, and then extending his long arm, gave a sudden grip
— usually at the face." He never tried to bite (though
Orangs will bite one another), his great weapons of offence
and defence being his hands.
His intelligence was very great ; and Muller remarks,
that, though the faculties of the Orang have been esti-
mated too highly, yet Cuvier, had he seen this specimen,
would not have considered its intelligence to be only a lit-
tle higher than that of a dog.
His hearing was very acute, but the sense of vision
seemed to be less perfect. The under lip was the great
organ of touch, and played a very important part in drink-
ing, being thrust out like a trough, so as either to catch
the falling rain, or to receive the contents of the half
cocoa-nut shell full of water with which the Orang was
supplied, and which, in drinking, he poured into the
trough thus formed.
In Borneo the Orang-TJtan of the Malays goes by the
name of ''Mias " among the Dyaks, who distinguish sev-
eral kinds as Mias Pajpjpom^ or Zimo^ Mias Kassu^ l^nd
Mias JRairibi. Whether these are distinct species, how-
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 63
ever, or whether they are mere races, and how far any of
them are identical with the Sumatran Orang, as Mr. Wal-
lace thinks the Mias Pappan to be, are problems which
are at present undecided ; and the variability of these
great apes is so extensive, that the settlement of the ques-
tion is a matter of great difficulty. Of tlie form called
" Mias Pappan," Mr. Wallace* observes, " It is known
by its large size, and by the lateral expansion of the face
into fatty protuberances or ridges, over the temporal mus-
cles, which have been mis-termed callosities, as they are
perfectly soft, smooth, and flexible. Five of this form,
measured by me, varied only from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet
2 inches in height, from the heel to the crown of the head,
the girth of the body from 3 feet to 3 feet 7|- inches, and
the extent of the outstretched arms from T feet 2 inches to
7 feet 6 inches ; the width of the face from 10 to ISJ
inches. The colour and length of the hair varied in differ-
ent individuals, and in different parts of the same individ-
ual ; some possessed a rudimentary nail on the great toe,
others none at all ; but they otherwise present no external
differences on which to establish even varieties of a
species.
Yet, when we examine the crania of these individuals,
we find remarkable differences of form, proportion, and
dimension, no two being exactly alike. The slope of the
profile, and the projection of the muzzle, together with
the size of the cranium, offer differences as decided as
those existing between the most strongly marked forms of
the Caucasian and African crania in the human species.
The orbits vary in width and height, the cranial ridge is
either single or double, either much or little developed,
and the zygomatic aperture varies considerably in size.
* On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, Annals of Natural History,
1856.
54: THE NATUKAL HISTOET OF
This variation in tlie proportions of the crania enables ns
satisfactorily to explain the marked difference presented
by the single-crested and double-crested skulls, which
have been thought to prove the existence of two large
species of Orang. The external surface of the skull varies
considerably in size, as do also the zygomatic- aperture and
the temporal muscle ; but they bear no necessary relation
to each other, a small muscle often existing with a large
cranial surface, and vice versa, JSTow, those skulls which
have the largest and strongest jaws and the widest zygo-
matic aperture, have the muscles so large that they meet
on the crown of the skull, and deposit the bony ridge
which separates them, and which is the highest in that
which has the smallest cranial surface. In those which
combine a large surface with comparatively weak jaws,
and small zygomatic aperture, the muscles, on each side,
do not extend to the crown, a sj^ace of from 1 to 2 inches
remaining between them, and along their margins small
ridges are formed. Intermediate forms are found, in
which the ridges meet only in the hinder part of the skull.
The form and size of the ridges are therefore independent
of age, being sometimes more strongly developed in the
less aged animal. Professor Temminck states that the
series of skulls in the Leyden Museum shows the same
result."
Mr. "Wallace observed two male adult Orangs (Mias
Kassu of the Dyaks), however, so very different from any
of these that he concludes them to be specially distinct ;
they were respectively 3 feet 8^ in. and 3 feet 9|^ inches
high, and possessed no sign of the cheek excrescences, but
otherwise resembled the larger kinds. The skull has no
crest, but two bony ridges. If inches to 2 inches apart, as
in the Simla morio of Professor Owen. The teeth, how-
ever, are immense, equalling or surpassing those of the
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 55
other species. Tlie females of both these kinds, according
to Mr. Wallace, are devoid of excrescences, and resemble
the smaller males, but are shorter by 1|- to 3 inches, and
their canine teeth are comparatively small, snbtruncated
and dilated at the base, as in the so-called Simla niorio^
which is, in all probability, the skull of a female of the
same species as the smaller males. Both males and fe-
males of this smaller species are distinguishable, according
to Mr. Wallace, by the comparatively large size of the
middle incisors of the upper jaw.
So far as I am aware, no one has attempted to dispute
the accuracy of the statements which I have just quated
regarding the habits of the two Asiatic man-like Apes ;
and if true, they must be admitted as evidence, that such
an Ape —
Istly, May readily move along the ground in the erect,
or semi-erect, position, and without direct support from
its arms.
2ndly, That it may possess an extremely loud voice, so
loud as to be readily heard one or two miles.
3rdly, That it may be capable of great viciousness and
violence when uTitated : and this is especially true of
adult males.
4thly, That it may build a nest to sleep in.
Such being well-established facts respecting the Asiatic
Anthropoids, analogy alone might justify us in expecting
the African species to offer similar peculiarities, separately
or combined ; or, at any rate, would destroy the force of
any attempted a priori argument against such direct testi-
mony as might be adduced in favour of their existence.
And, if the organization of any of the African Apes could
be demonstrated to fit it better than either of its Asiatic
allies for the erect position and for efficient attack, there
56 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
would be still less reason for doubting its occasional adop-
tion of the upright attitude or of aggressive proceedings.
From the time of Tyson and Tulpius downwards, the
habits of the young Chimpanzee in a state of captivity
have been abundantly reported and commented upon.
But trustworthy evidence as to the manners and customs
of- adult anthropoids of this species, in their native woods,
was almost wanting up to the tim'e of the publication of
the paper by Dr. Savage, to which I have already refer'-
red ; containing notes of the observations which he made,
and of the information which he collected from sources
which he considered trustworthy, while resident at Cape
Paimas, at the northwestern limit of the Bight of Benin.
The adult Chimpanzees, measured by Dr. Savage^
never exceeded, though the males may almost attain, -^.Te
feet in height.
" "When at rest, the sitting posture is that generally
assumed. They are sometimes seen standing and walk-
ing, but when thus detected, they immediately take to all
fours, and flee from the presence of the observer. Such is
their organization that they cannot stand erect, but lean
forward. Hence they are seen, when standing, with the
hands clasped over the occiput, or the lumbar region,
which would seem necessary to balance or ease of posture.
" The toes of the adult are strongly flexed and turned
inwards, and cannot be perfectly straightened. In the
attempt the skin gathers into thick folds on the back,
shewing that the full expansion of the foot, as is necessary
in walking, is unnatural. The natural position is on all
fours, the body anteriorly resting upon the knuckles.
These are greatly enlarged, with the skin protuberant and
thickened like the sole of the foot.
" They are expert climbers, as one would suppose from
their organization. In their gatnbols they swing from
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 67
limb to limb at a great distance, and leap with astonishing
agility. It is not nnnsnal to see the ' old folks ' (in the
language of an observer) sitting under a tree, regaling
themselves with fruit and friendly chat, while their ' chil-
dren ' are leaping around them, and swinging from tree to
tree with boisterous merriment..
" As seen here, they cannot be called gregarious, sel-
dom more than five, or ten at most, being found together.
It has been said, on good authority, that they occasionally
assemble in large numbers, in gambols. My informant
asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so engaged ;
hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old
logs, which is done in the latter case with equal facility
by the four extremities. They do not appear ever to act
on the offensive, and seldom, if ever really, on the defen-
sive. When about to be captured, they resist by throw-
ing their arms about their opponent, and attempting to
draw him into contact with their teeth." (Savage, 1. c. p.
384.)
With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is very ex-
plicit in another place :
" Siting is their principal art of defence. I have seen
one man who had been thus severely wounded in the feet.
" The strong development of the canine teeth in the
adult would seem to indicate a carnivorous propensity ;
but in no state save that of domestication do they mani-
fest it. At first they reject flesh, but easily acquire a
fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and
evidently designed to act the important part of weapons
of defence. When in contact with man almost the first
effort of the animal is — to hite.
" They avoid the abodes of men, and build their hab-
itations in trees. Their construction is more that of nests
than huts, as they have been erroneously termed by some
2*
68 " THE NATIJEAL HISTORY OF
naturalists. Tliej generally build not far above tbe ground.
Brandies or twigs are bent, or partly broken, and crossed,
and the whole supported by the body of a limb or a crotch.
Sometimes a nest will be found near the end of a strong
leafy hranch twenty or thirty feet from the ground. One
I have lately seen that could not be less than forty feet,
and more probably it was fifty. But this is an unusual
height.
" Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed
in pursuit of food and solitude, according to the force of
circumstances. We more often see them in elevated
places ; but this arises from the fact that the low grounds,
being more favourable for the natives' rice-farms, are the
oftener cleared, and hence are almost always wanting in
suitable trees for their nests. . . . It is seldom that
more than one or two nests are seen upon the same tree,
or in the same neighbourhood : five have been found, but
it was an unusual circumstance."
" They are very filthy in their habits. .... It
is a tradition with the natives generally here, that they
were once members of their own tribe : that for their de-
praved habits they .were expelled from all human society,
and that through an obstinate indulgence of their vile pro-
pensities, they have degenerated into their present state
of organization. They are, however, eaten by them, and
when cooked with the oil and pulp of the palm-nut con-
sidered a highly palatable morsel.
" They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in
their habits, and, on the part of the mother, much aflfec-
tion for their young. The second female described was
upon a tree when first discovered, with her mate and two
young ones (a male and a female). Her first impulse was
to descend with great rapidity, and make ofi" into the
thicket, with her mate and female offspring. The yoimg
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 59
male remaining behind, slie soon returned to tlie rescue.
She ascended and took liim in her arms, at -svhich moment
she was shot, the ball passing through the fore-arm of the
young one, on its way to the heart of the mother
" In a recent case, the mother, when discovered, re-
mained upon the tree with her offspring, watching intently
the movements of the hunter. As he took aim, she mo-
tioned with her hand, j)recisely in the manner of a human
being, to have him desist and go away. When the wound
has not proved instantly fatal, they have been known to
stop the flow of blood by pressing with the hand upon the
part, and wdien they did not succeed, to apply leaves and
grass "When shot, they give a sudden screech,
not unlike that of a human being in sudden and acute
distress."
" The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, however, is
affirmed to be hoarse, guttural, and not very loud, some-
what like ' whoo-whoo.' " (1. c. p. 365.)
The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang, in its
nest-building habit and in the mode of forming its nest, is
exceedingly interesting ; while, on the other hand, the ac-
tivity of this ape, and its tendency to bite, are particulars
in which it rather resembles the Gibbons. In extent of
geographical range, again, the Chimpanzees — which are
found from Sierra Leone to Congo — remind one of the
Gibbons, rather than of either of the other man-like apes ;
and it seems not unlikelv that, as is the case with the Gib-
bons, there may be several species spread over the geograph-
ical area of the genus.
The same excellent observer, from whom I have bor-
rowed the preceding account of the habits of the adult
Chimpanzee, published, fifteen years ago,* an account of
* Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytes Gorilla. Bos-
ton Journal of Natural History, 184*7.
60
THE NATURAL HISTOEY OF
the Gorilla, wliicli has, in its most essential points, been
confirmed by subsequent observers, and to which so very
little has really been added, that in justice to Dr. Savage
I give it almost in full.
Fig. 10.— The Gorilla, after Wolf.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 61
" It should be borne in mind that my account is based
upon the statements of the aborigines of that region (the
Gaboon). In this connection, it may also be proper for
me to remark, that having been a missionary resident for
several years, studying, from habitual intercom'se, the Af-
rican mind and character, I felt myself prepared to dis-
criminate and decide upon the probability of their state-
ments. Besides, being familiar with the history and habits
of its interesting congener {Trog. niger, Geoff.), I was able
to separate their accounts of the two animals, which, hav-
ing the same locality and a similarity of habit, are con-
founded in the minds of the mass, especially as but few —
such as traders to the interior and huntsmen — ^have ever
seen the animal in question.
The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is
derived, aud whose territory forms its habitat, is the
Ifpongwe^ occupying both banks of the River Gaboon,
from its mouth to some fifty or sixty miles upward. . . .
If the word " Pongo " be of African origin, it is prob.-
ably a corruption of the word Ifpongwe^ the name of the
tribe on the banks of the Gaboon, and hence applied to
the region they inhabit. Their local name for the Chim-
panzee is Enche-eko, as near as it can be Anglicized, from
which the common term " Jocko " probably comes. The
Mpongwe appellation for its new congener is Enge-ena^
prolonging the sound of the first vowel, and shghtly
sounding the second.
The habitat of the Enge-ena is the interior of lower
Guinea, whilst that of the Enclie-eko is nearer the sea-
board.
Its height is about five feet ; it is disproportionately
broad across the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse
black hair, which is said to be similar in its arrangement
to that of the Enche-eko / with age it becomes gray, which
62 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
fact has given rise to tlie report that both animals are seen
of different colours.
Head. — The prominent features of the head are, the
great width and elongation of the face, the depth of the
molar region, the branches of the lower jaw being very
deep and extending far backward, and the comparative
smallness of the cranial portion ; the eyes are very large,
and said to be like those of the Enche-eko, a bright hazel ;
nose broad and flat, slightly elevated towards the root ;
the muzzle broad, and prominent lips and chin, with scat-
tered gray hairs ; the under lip highly mobile, and capable
of great elongation when the animal is enraged, then
hanging over the chin ; skin of the face and ears naked,
and of a dark brown, approaching to black.
The most remarkable feature of the head is a high
ridge, or crest of hair, in the course of the sagittal suture,
which meets posteriorly with a transverse ridge of the
same, but less prominent, running round from the back of
one ear to the other. The animal has the power of mov-
ing the scalp freely forward and back, and when enraged
is said to contract it strongly over the brow, thus bringing
down the hairy ridge and pointing the hair forward, so as
to present an indescribably ferocious aspect.
ISTeck short, thick, and hairy ; chest and shoulders very
broad, said to be fully double the size of the Enche-ekos ;
arms very long, reaching some way below the knee — the
fore-arm much the shortest ; hands very large, the thumbs
much larger than the fingers. . . * .
The gait is shuffling ; the motion of the body, which
is never upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat
rolling, or from side to side. The arms being longer than
the Chimpanzee, it does not stoop as much in walking ;
like that animal, it makes progression by thrusting its
arms forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then
THE MAl^^-LIKE APES.
63
giving the body a half jumping half swinging motion
between them. In this act it is said not to flex the lin-
gers, as does the Chim-
panzee, resting on its
knuckles, but to extend
them, making a fulcrum
of the hand. When it
assumes the walking pos-
ture, to which it is said
to be much inclined, it
balances its huge body
by flexing its arms up-
1 Fig. 11. — Gorilla walking (after Wolff.)
They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the.
Chimpanzees : the females generally exceed the other sex
in number. My informants all agree in the assertion that
but one adult male is seen in a band ; that when the
young males grow up, a contest takes place for mastery,
and the strongest, by killing and driving out the others,
establishes himself as the head of the community."
Dr. Savage repudiates the stories about the Gorillas
carrying off women and vanquishing elephants, and then
adds —
" Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar
to those of the Chimpanzee, consisting simply" of a few
sticks and leafy branches, supported by the crotches and
limbs of trees : they afford no shelter, and are occupied
only at night.
" They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive
in their habits, never running from man, as does the Chim-
panzee. They are objects of terror to the natives, and are
never encountered by them except on the defensive. The
few that have been captured were killed by elephant-
64 THE NATUEAL HISTORY OF
hunters and native traders, as they came suddenly upon
them while passing through the forests.
'' It is said, that when the male is first seen he gives a
terrific yell, that resounds far and wide through the forest,
something like kh — ah ! kli — ah ! prolonged and shrill.
His enormous jaws are widely opened at each expiration,
his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy ridge and
scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect
of indescribable ferocity.
" The females and young, at the first cry, quickly dis-
appear. He then approaches the enemy in great fury,
pouring out his horrid cries in quick succession. The
hunter awaits his approach with his gun extended : if his
aim is not sure, he permits the animal to grasp the barrel,
and as he carries it to his mouth (which is his habit) he
fires. Should the gun fail to go off, the barrel (that of the
ordinary musket, which is ^ thin) is crushed between his
teeth, and the encounter soon proves fatal to the hunter.
" In the wild state, their habits are in general like
those of the Troglodytes niger, building tlieir nests loosely
in trees, living on similar fruits, aud changing their place
of resort from force of circumstances."
Dr. Savage's observations were confirmed and sujDple-
mented by those of Mr. Ford, who communicated an in-
teresting paper on the Gorilla to the Philadelphian Acad-
emy of Sciences, in 1852. With respect to the geographi-
cal distribution of this greatest of all the man-Hke Apes,
Mr. Ford remarks :
"This animal inhabits the range of mountains that
traverse the interior of Guinea, from the Cameroon in the
north, to Angola in the south, and about 100 miles inland,
and called by the geographers Crystal Mountains. The
limit to which this animal extends, either north or south,
I am unable to define. But that limit is doubtless some
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 65
distance north of this river [Gaboon]. I was able to cer-
tify myself of this fact in a late excursion to the head-
waters of the Moonej (Danger) River, which comes into
the sea some sixty miles from this place. I was informed
(credibly, I think,) that they were numerous among the
mountains in which that river rises, and far north of that.
" In the south, this species extends to the Congo River,
as I am told by native traders who have visited the coast,
between the Gaboon and that river. Beyond that, I am
not informed. This animal is only foimd at a distance
from the coast in most cases, and, according to my best
information, approaches it nowhere so nearly as on the
south side of this river, where they have been found within
ten miles of the sea. This, however, is only of late occur-
rence. I am informed by some of the oldest Mpongwe
men that formerly he was only found on the sources of the
river, but that at present he may be found within half-a-
day's walk of its mouth. Formerly he inhabited the
mountainous ridge where Bushmen alone inhabited, but
now he boldly approaches the Mpongwe plantations.
This is doubtless the reason of the scarcity of information
in yeaTs past, as the opportunities for receiving a knowl-
edge of the animal have not been wanting ; traders having
for one hundred years frequented this river, and speci-
mens, such as have been brought here within a year, could
not tave been exhibited without having attracted the at-
tention of the most stupid."
One specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed ITOlbs.,
without the thoracic, or pelvic, viscera, and measured four
feet four inches round the chest. This writer describes so
minutely and graphically the onslaught of the Gorilla —
though he does not for a moment pretend to have wit-
nessed the scene — that I am tempted to give this part of
his paper in full, for comparison with other narratives :
6Q THE NATUKAL HISTORY OF
" He always rises to his feet wlien making an attack,
thouo-li lie approaches his antagonist in a stooping posture.
" Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears,
sees, or scents a man, he immediately ntters his character-
istic cry, prepares for an attack, and always acts on the
offensive. The cry he utters resembles a grunt more than
a growl, and is similar to the cry of the Chimpanzee, when
irritated, but vastly louder. It is said to be audible at a
great distance. His preparation consists in attending the
females and young ones, by whom he is usually accompa-
nied, to a little distance. He, however, soon returns, with
his crest erect and projecting forward, his nostrils dilated,
and his under-lip thrown down ; at the same time uttering
his characteristic yell, designed, it would seem, to terrify
his antagonist. Instantly, unless he is disabled by a well-
directed shot, he makes an onset, and, striking his antago-
nist with the palm of his hands, or seizing him with a
grasp from which there is no escape, he dashes him upon
the ground, and lacerates him with his tusks.
" He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the
barrel between his teeth This animal's
savage nature is very well shewn by the implacable des-
peration of a young one that was brought here. It was
taken very young, and kept four months, and many means
were used to tame it ; but it was incorrigible, so that it
bit me an hour before it died.""
Mr. Ford discredits the house-building and elephant-
driving stories, and says that no well-informed natives
believe them. They are tales told to children.
I might quote other testimony to a similar effect, but,
as it appears to me, less carefully weighed and sifted, from
the letters of MM. Franquet and Gautier Laboullay, ap-
pended to the memoir of M. I. G. St. Hilaire, which I
have already cited.
THE MAN-LIKE APES. 67
Bearing in mind what is known regarding the Orang
and the Gibbon, the statements of Dr. Savage and Mr.
Ford do not appear to me to be justly open to criticism
on a j^riori grounds. The Gibbons, as we have seen,
readily assume the erect posture, but the Gorilla is far
better fitted by its organization for that attitude than are
the Gibbons : if the laryngeal pouches of the Gibbons, as
is very likely, are important in giving volume to a voice
which can be heard for half a league-, the Gorilla, wliich
has similar sacs, more largely developed,. and whose bulk
is fivefold that of a Gibbon, may weir be audible for twice
that distance. If the Orang fights with its hands, the
Gibbons and Chimpanzees with their teeth,, the- Gorilla
may, probably enough, do either or both; 'nor is there
anything to be said against either Chimpanzee or Gorilla
building a nest, when it is proved that the Orang-Utan
habitually performs that feat.
With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years old,
before the world, it is not a little surprising that the asser-
tions of a recent traveller, who, so far as the. Gorilla is
concerned, really does very little more than repeat, on his
own authority, the statements of Savage and Ford, should
have met with so much and such bitter opposition. If
subtraction be made of what was known before, tlie sum
and substance of what M. Du Chaillu has aflirmed as a
matter of his own observation respecting the Gorilla, is,
that, on advancing to the attack, the great brute beats his
chest with his fists. I confess I see nothing very improba-
ble, or very much worth disputing about, in this state-
ment.
With respect to the other man-like Apes of Africa, M.
Du Chailhi tells us absolutely nothing, of his own knowl-
edge, regarding the common Chimpanzee ; but he informs
us of a bald-headed species or variety, the nschiego
68 THiil NAITJEAL HISTORY OF
mhouve^ which builds itself a shelter, and of another rare
kind with a comparatively small face, large facial angle,
and peculiar note, resembling " Kooloo."
As the Orang shelters itself with a rough coverlet of
leaves, and the common Chimpanzee, according to that
eminently trustworthy observer Dr. Savage, makes a sound
like " Whoo-whoo," — the grounds of the summary repudi-
ation with which M. Du Chaillu's statements on these
matters have been met is not obvious.
If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillu's
w^ork, then, it is not because I discern any inherent im-
probability in his assertions respecting the man-like
Apes ; nor from any wish to throw susj^icion on his ve-
racity ; but because, in my opinion, so long as his narra-
tive remains in its present state of unexplained and appa-
rently inexj)licable confusion, it has no claim to original
authority respecting any subject whatsoever.
It may be truth, but it is not evidence.
AFKICAJSr CANNIBALISM IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 69
AFEICAN CANNIBALISM IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
In turning, over Pigafetta's version of the narrative of Lopez,
whicli I have quoted
above, I came upon so
curious and unexpected
an anticipation, by some
two centuries and a
half, of one of the most
startling parts of M. Du
Chaillu's narrative, that
I cannot refrain from
drawing attention to it
in a note, although I
must confess that the
subject is not strictly-
relevant to the matter
in hand.
In the fifth chapter
of the first book of the
" Descriptio, " Concern-
ing the northern part
of the Kingdom of Con-
go and its boundaries,
is mentioned a people
whose king is called
' Maniloango,' and who
live under the equator,
and as far westward as
Cape Lopez. This ap-
pears to be the country
now inhabited by the
Ogobai and Bakalai ac-
cording to M. Du Chail-
lu. — " Beyond these
dwell another people
called ' Anziques,' of incredible ferocity, for they eat one another,
sparing neither friends nor relations."
Fio. 12.— Butcher's Shop of the Anziques, Anno 1598.
70 AFEICAN CANNIBALISM IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTUEY.
These people are armed with small bows bound tightly round
with snake skins, and strung with a reed or rush. Their arrows,
short and slender, but made of hard wood, are shot with great ra-
pidity. They have iron axes, the handles of which are bound with
snake skins, and swords with scabbards of the same material ; for
defensive armour they emjDloy elephant hides. They cut their skins
when young, so as to produce scars. " Their butchers' shops are
filled with human flesh instead of that of oxen or sheep. For they
eat the enemies whom they take in battle. They fatten, slay, and
devour their slaves also, unless they think they shall get a good
price for them ; and, moreover, sometimes for weariness of life or
desire for glory (for they think it a great thing and the sign of a
generous soul to despise life), or for love of their rulers, offer them-
selves up for food."
" There are indeed many cannibals, as in the Eastern Indies and
in Brazil and elsewhere, but none such as these, since the others only
eat their enemies, but these their own blood relations."
The careful illustrators of Pigafetta have done their best to enable
the reader to realize this account of the ' Anziques,' and the unexam-
pled butcher's shop represented in fig. 12, is a facsimile of part of
their Plate XII.
M. Du Chaillu's account of the Fans accords most singularly with
what Lopez here narrates of the Anziques. He speaks of their small
crossbows and little arrows, of their axes and knives, " ingeniously
sheathed in snake skins." " They tattoo themselves more than any
other tribes I have met with north of the equator." And all the
world knows what M. Du Chaillu says of their cannibalism—" Pres-
ently we passed a woman who solved all doubt. She bore with her
a piece of the thigh of a human body, just as we should go to mar-
ket and carry thence a roast or steak." M. Du Chaillu's artist can-
not generally be accused of any want of courage in embodying the
statements of his author, and it is to be regretted that, with so good
an excuse, he has not furnished us with a fitting companion to the
sketch of the brothers De Bry.
II.
oil THE EELATIOJ^S OF MAIST TO THE
LOWEE AISTIMALS.
Multis videri poterit, majorem esse differentiam Simiae et Hominis, quam diei
et noetis ; verum tamen hi, comparatione instituta inter siimmos Europoe
Heroes et Hottentottos ad Caput bonse sp.ei degentes, difficillime sibi per-
suadebunt, has eosdem habere natales; vel si virginem nobilem aulieam,
maxime contain et humanissimam, conferre vellent cum homine sylvestri et
sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, hunc et illam ejusdem esse speciei. — Lin-
ncei Amcenitates Acad. ''''Anthropomorphay
The question of questions for mankind — the problem
whicla underlies all others, and is more deeply interesting
than any other — is the ascertainment of the place which
Man occupies in nature and of his relations to the uni-
verse of things. "Whence our race has come ; what are
the limits of our power over nature, and of nature's power
over us ; to what goal we are tending ; are the problems
which present themselves anew and with undiminished
interest to every man born into the world. Most of us,
shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which beset the
seeker after original answers to these riddles, are contented
to ignore them altogether, or to smother the investigating
spirit under the featherbed of respected and respectable
tradition. But, in every age, one or two restless spirits,
blessed with that constructive genius, which can only build
72 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
on a secure foundation, or cursed with tlie mere spirit of
scepticism, are unable to follow in the well-worn and com-
fortable track of their forefathers and contemporaries, and
unmindful of thorns and stumbling-blocks, strike out into
paths of their own. The sceptics end in the infidehty
which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in the athe-
ism which denies the "existence of any orderly progress and
governance of things : the men of genius propound solu-
tions which grow into systems of Theology or of Philoso-
phy, or veiled in musical language which suggests more
than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch.
Each such answer to the great question, invariably
asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by him-
self, to be complete and final, remains in high authority
and esteem, it may be for one century, or it may be for
twenty : but, as invariably. Time proves each reply to
have been a mere approximation to the truth — tolerable
chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it
was accepted, and wholly intolerable when tested by the
larger knowledge of their successors.
In a well-worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn between
the life of man and the metamorphosis of the caterpillar
into the butterfly ; but the comparison may be more just
as well as more novel, if for its former term we take the
mental j)rogress of the race. History shows that the
human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge,
periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings,
and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as
the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too
narrow skin and assumes another, itself but temporary.
Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant,
but every moult is a step gained, and of such there have
been many.
Since the revival of learning, whereby the Western
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 73
races of Europe were enabled to enter upon that progress
towards true knowledge, wliich was commenced by the
philosophers of Greece, but was almost arrested in subse-
quent long ages of intellectual stagnation, or, at most,
gyration, the human larva has been feeding vigorously,
and moulting in proportion. A skin of some dimension
was cast in the 16th century, and another towards the end
of the 18th, while, within the last fifty years, the extraor-
dinary growth of every department of physical science has
spread among us mental food of so nutritious and stimu-
lating a character that a new ecdysis seems imminent.
But this is a process not unusually accompanied by many
throes and some sickness and debility, or, it may be, by
graver disturbances ; so that every good citizen must feel
bound to facilitate the process, and even if he have noth-
ing but a scalpel to work withal, to ease the cracking in-
tegument to the best of his ability.
In this duty lies my excuse for the publication of these
essays. For it will be admitted that some knowledge of
man's position in the animate world is an indispensable
preliminary to the proper understanding of his relations
to the universe — and this again resolves itself, in the long
run, into an inquiry into the nature and the closeness of
the ties which connect him with those singular creatures
whose history* has been sketched in the preceding pages.
The importance of such an inquiry is indeed intuitively
manifest. Brought face to face with these blurred copies
of himself, the least thoughtful of men is conscious of a
certain shock, due, perhaps, not so much to disgust at the
aspect of what looks like an insulting caricature, as to the
awakening of a sudden and profound mistrust of time-
* It will be understood that, in the preceding Essay, I have selected for
notice from the vast mass of papers which have been written upon the man-
like Apes, only those which seem to me to be of special moment.
4
74 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
honoured theories and strongly-rooted prejudices regard-
ing his own position in nature, and his relations to the
nnder-world of life ; while that which remains a dim sus-
picion for the unthinking, becomes a vast argument,
fraught with the deepest consequences, for all who are
acquainted with the recent progress of the anatomical and
physiological sciences.
I now propose briefly to unfold that argument, and to
set forth, in a form intelligible to those who possess no
special acquaintance with anatomical science, the chief
facts upon which all conclusions respecting the nature and
the extent of the bonds which connect man with the brute
world must be based : I shall then indicate the one imme-
diate conclusion which, in my judgment, is justified by
those facts, and I shall finally discuss the bearing of that
, conclusion upon the hypotheses which have been enter-
tained respecting the Origin of Man.
The facts to which I would first direct the reader's
attention, though ignored by many of the professed in-
structors of the public mind, are easy of demonstration
and are universally agreed to by men of science ; while
their significance is so great, that whoso has duly pon-
dered over them will, I think, find little to startle him in
the other revelations of Biology. I refer to those facts
which have been made known by the study of Develop-
ment.
It is a truth of very wide, if not of universal, applica-
tion, that every living creature commences its existence
under a form different from, and simpler than, that which
it eventually attains.
The oak is a more complex thing than the little rudi-
mentary plant contained in the acorn ; the caterpillar is
more complex than the egg ; the butterfly than the cater-
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 75
*
pillar ; and each of these beings, in passing from its rudi-
mentary to its perfect condition, runs through a series of
changes, the sum of which is called its Development. In
the higher animals these changes are extremely compli-
cated ; but, within the last half century, the labours of
such men as Yon Baer, Ratlike, Keichert, Bischof, and
Remak, have almost completely unravelled them, so that
the successive stages of development which are exhibited
by a Dog, for example, are now as well known to the em-
bryologist as are the steps of the metamorphosis of the
silk-worm moth to the school-boy. It will be useful to
consider with attention the nature and the order of the
stages of canine development, as an example of the process
in the higher animals generally.
The Dog, like all animals, save the very lowest (and
further inquiries may not improbably remove the apparent
exception), commence^: its existence as an egg : as a body
which is, in every sense, as much an egg as that of a hen,
but is devoid of that accumulation of nutritive matter
which confers upon the bird's egg its exceptional size and
domestic utility ; and wants the shell, which would not
only be useless to an animal incubated within the body of
its parent, but would . cut it off from access to the source
of that nutriment which the young creature requires, but
which the minute egg of the mammal does not contain
within itself.
The Dog's egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal bag (Fig.
13), formed of a delicate transparent membrane called the
vitelline memhrane, and about j^-^ to yoVth of an inch in
diameter. It contains a mass of viscid nutritive matter —
the ' yelk ^ — within which is inclosed a second much more
delicate spheroidal bag, called the ^germinal vesicle^ (a).
In this, lastly, lies a more solid rounded body, termed the
* germinal spot ' (h).
76
THE EELATIONS OF MAN
The egg, or ' Ovum,' is originally formed within a
gland, from which, in due season, it becomes detached,
Fig. 13. — A. Egg of the Dog, "with the viteHine membrane burst, so as to
give exit to the yelk, the germinal vesicle (a), and its included
spot (b).
B. C, D, E. F. Successive changes of the yelk indicated in the
text. After Bischoff.
and passes into the living chamber fitted for its protection
and maintenance during the protracted process of gesta-
tion. Here, when subjected to the required conditions,
this minute and apparently insignificant particle of living
matter, becomes animated by a new and mysterious ac-
tivity. The germinal vesicle and spot cease to be dis-
cernible (their precise fate being one of the yet unsolved
problems of embryology), but the yelk becomes circumfer-
entially indented, as if an invisible knife had been drawn
round it, and thus appears divided into two hemispheres
(Fig. 13, C). _
By the repetition of this process in various planes,
TO THE LOWEB ANIMALS. 77
these hemispheres become subdivided, so that four seg-
ments are prodticed (D) ; and these, in like manner, divide
and subdivide again, until the whole yelk is converted
into a mass of granules, each of which consists of a minute
spheroid of yelk-substance, inclosing a central particle, the
so-called ^ nucleus ' (F). Mature, by this process, has at-
tained much the same result as that at which a human
artificer arrives by his operations in a brick field. She
takes the rough plastic material of the yelk and breaks it
up into well-shaped tolerably even-sized masses — handy
for buildmg up into any part of the living edifice.
]^ext, the mass of organic bricks, or ' cells ' as they are
technically called, thus formed, acquires an orderly ar-
rangement, becoming converted into a hollow spheroid
with double walls. Then, upon one side of this spheroid,
appears a thickening, and, by and bye, in the centre of
the area of tliickening, a straight shallow groove (Fig. 14,
A) marks the central line of the edifice which is to be
raised, or, in other words, indicates the position of the
middle line of the body of the future dog. The substance
bounding the groove on each side next rises up into a fold,
the rudiment of the side wall of that long cavity, which
will eventually lodge the spinal marrow and the brain ;
and in the floor of this chamber appears a solid cellular
cord, the so-called ' notocliord.'' One end of the inclosed
cavity dilates to form the head (Fig. 14, B), the other re-
mains narrow, and eventually becomes the tail ; the side
walls of the body are fashioned out of the downward con-
tinuation of the walls of the groove ; and from them, by
and bye, grow out little buds whicli, by degrees, assume
the shape of limbs. Watching the fashioning process stage
by stage, one is forcibly reminded of the modeller in clay.
Every part, every organ, is at first, as it were, pinched up
rudely, and sketched out in the roiigh ; then shaped more
78
THE EELATIONS OF MAN
accurately, and only, at last, receives the touches which
stamp its final character.
Thus, at length, the young puppy assumes such a form
as is shewn in Fig. 14, C. In this condition it has a dis-
FiG. 14. — A. Earliest rudiment of the Dog. B. Rudiment further advanced,
showing the foundations of the head, tail, and vertebral col-
umn. C. The very young puppy, with attached ends of the
yelk-sac and allantois, and invested in the amnion.
proportionately large head, as dissimilar to that of a dog
as the bud-like limbs are unlike his legs.
The remains of the yelk, which have not yet been ap-
plied to the nutrition and growth of the young animal,
are contained in a sac attached to the rudimentary intes-
tine, and termed the yelk sac, or ' umbilical vesicle? Two
membranous bags, intended to subserve respectively the
protection and nutrition of the young creature, have been
developed from the skin and from the under and hinder
surface of the body ; the former, the so-called ' amnion^ is
a sac filled with fiuid, which invests the whole body qf the
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 79
embryo, and plays the part of a sort of water-bed for it ;
the other, termed the ' allantois^^ grows out, loaded with
blood-vessels, from the ventral region, and eventually ap-
plying itself to the walls of the cavity, in which the devel-
oping organism is contained, enables these vessels to be-
come the channel by which the stream of nutriment,
required to supply the wants of the offspring, is furnished
to it by the parent.
The structm^e which is developed by the interlacement
of the vessels of the offspring with those of the parent, and
by means of which the former is enabled to receive nour-
ishment and to get rid of effete matters, is termed the
' Placenta.''
It would be tedious, and it is unnecessary for my pres-
ent purpose, to trace the process of development farther ;
suffice it to say, that, by a long and gradual series of
changes, the rudiment here depicted and described, be-
comes a puppy, is born, and then, by still slower and less
perceptible steps, passes into the adult Dog.
There is not much apparent resemblance between a
barn-door Fowl and the Dog who protects the farm-yard.
Nevertheless the student of development finds, not only
that the chick commences its existence as an egg, primarily
identical, in all essential respects, with that of the Dog,
but that the yelk of this Qgg undergoes division — that the
primitive groove arises, and that the contiguous parts of
the germ are fashioned, by precisely similar methods, into
a young chick, which, at one stage of its existence, is so
like the nascent Dog, that ordinary inspection would
hardly distinguish the two.
The history of the development of any other vertebrate
animal. Lizard, Snake, Frog, or Fish, tells the same story.
There is always, to begin with, an egg having the same
80 THE KELATIONS OF MAN
essential structure as that of the Dog : — the yelk of that
egg always undergoes division, or ' seg7nentation ' as it is
often called : the ultimate products of that segmentation
constitute the building materials for the body of the young
animal ; and this is built up round a primitive groove, in
the floor of which a notochord is developed. Further-
more, there is a period in which the young of all these
animals resemble one another, not merely in outward
form, but in all essentials of structure, so closely, that the
differences between them are inconsiderable, while, in
their subsequent course, they diverge more and more
widely from one another. And it is a general law, that,
the more closely any animals resemble one another in
adult structure, the longer and the more intimately do their
embryos resemble one another : so that, for example, the
embryos of a Snake and of a Lizard remain like one an-
other longer than do those of a Snake and of a Bird ; and
the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain like one another
for a far longer period than do those of a Dog and a Bird ; .
or of a Dog and an Opossum ; or even than those of a
Dog and a Monkey.
Thus the study of development affords a clear test of
closeness of structural affinity, and one turns with impa-
tience to inquire what results are yielded by the study of
the development of Man. Is he something apart ? Does
he originate in a totally different way from Dog, Bird,
Frog, and Fish, thus justifying those who assert him to
have no place in nature and no real affinity with the
lower world of animal life ? Or does he originate in a
similar germ, pass through the same slow and gradually
progressive modifications, — depend on the same contri-
vances for protection and nutrition, and finally enter the
world by the help of the same mechanism ? The reply is
not doubtful for a moment, and has not been doubtful any
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 81
time these thirty years. Without question, the mode of
origin and the early stages of the development of man are
identical with those of the animals immediately below him
in the scale : — without a doubt, in these respects, he is far
nearer the Apes, than the Apes are to the Dog.
The Human ovum is about j^j ^^ ^^^ i^ch in diameter,
and mio^ht be described in the same terms as that of the
Dog, so that I need only refer to the figure illustrative
(15 A.) of its structure. It leaves the organ in which it is
formed in a similar fashion and enters the organic cham-
ber prepared for its reception in the same Vay, the condi-
tions of its development being in all respects the same.
It has not yet been possible (and only by some rare chance
can it ever be possible) to study the human o\aim in so
early a developmental stage as that of yelk division, but
there is every reason to conclude that the changes it un-
dergoes are identical with those exliibited by the ova of
other vertebrated animals ; for the formative materials of
which the rudimentary human body is composed, in the
earliest conditions in which it has been observed, are the
same as those of other animals. Some of these earliest
stages are figured below and, as will be seen, they are
strictly comparable to the very early states of the Dog ;
the marvellous correspondence between the two which is
kept up, even for some time, as development advances,
becoming apparent by the simple comparison of the fig-
ures with those on page 63.
Indeed, it is very long before the body of the young
human being can be readily discriminated from that of
the young puppy ; but, at a tolerably early period, the
two become distinguishable by the different fonn of their
adjuncts, the yelk-sac and the allantois. The former, in
the Dog, becomes long and spindle-shaped, while in Man
it remains spherical : the latter, in the Dog, attains an ex-
4*
82
THE RELATIONS OF MAN
tremely large size, and the vascular processes which are
developed from it and eventnally give rise to the forma-
tion of the placenta (taking root, as it were, in the parental
Fig. 15. — A. Human ovum (after KoUiker). a. germinal vesicle, h. ger-
minal spot.
B. A very» early condition of Man, with yelk-sac, allantois and am-
nion (original).
C. A more advanced stage (after Kolliker), compare fig. 14, C.
organism, so as to draw nourishment therefrom, as the root
of a tree extracts it from the soil) are arranged in an en-
circling zone, while in Man, the allantois remains compar-
atively small, and its vascular rootlets are eventually re-
stricted to one disk-like spot. Hence, while the placenta
of the Dog is like a girdle, that of Man has the cake-like
form, indicated by the name of the organ.
But, exactly in those respects in which the developing
Man differs from the Dog, he resembles the Ape, which,
like man, has a spheroidal yelk-sac and a discoidal — some-
times partially lobed-placenta.
So that it is only quite in the later stages of develop-
ment that the young human being presents marked difler-
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 83
ences from the yoimg ape, while the latter departs as
much from the dog in its development as the man does.
Startling as the last assertion may appear to be, it is
demonstrably true, and it alone appears to me sufficient to
place beyond all doubt the structural unity of man with
the rest of the animal world, and more particularly and
closely with the apes.
Thus, identical in the physical processes by which he
originates — identical in the early stages of his formation —
identical in the mode of his nutrition before and after
birth, with the animals which lie immediately below him
in the scale — Man, if his adult and perfect structure be
compared with theirs, exhibits, as might be expected, a
marvellous likeness of organization. He resembles them
as they resemble one another — ^he differs from them as
they differ from one another. — And, though these differ-
ences and resemblances cannot be weighed and measured,
their value may be readily estimated ; the scale • or stan-
dard of judgment, touching that value, being afforded and
expressed by the system of classification of animals now
current among zoologists.
A careful study of the resemblances and differences
presented by animals has, in fact, led naturalists to ar-
range them into groups, or assemblages, all the members
of each group presenting a certain amount of definable
resemblance, and the number of points of similarity being
smaller as the group is larger and vice versa. Thus, all
creatures which agree only in presenting the few distinct-
ive marks of animality form the ' Kingdom ' Animalia.
The numerous animals which agree only in possessing the
special characters of Yertebrates form one ' Sub-kingdom '
of this Kingdom. Then the Sub-kingdom Yeetebeata is
subdivided into the five * Classes,' Fishes, Amphibians,
84 THE EELATIONS OF MAN
Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals, and tliese into smaller
groups called ' Orders ; ' these into ' Families ' and ' Gen-
era ;' while the last are finally broken up into the smallest
assemblages, which are distinguished by the possession of
constant, not-sexual, characters. These ultimate groups
are Species.
Every year tends to bring about a greater uniformity
of opinion throughout the zoological world as to the limits
and characters of these groups, great and small. At pres-
ent, for example, no one has the least doubt regarding the
characters of the classes Mammalia, Aves, or Reptilia ;
nor does the question arise whether any thoroughly well-
known animal should be placed in one class or the other.
Again, there is a very general agreement respecting the
characters and limits of the orders of Mammals, and as to
the animals which are structurally necessitated to take a
place in one or another order.
Ko one doubts, for example, that the Sloth and the
Ant-eater, the Kangaroo and the Opossum, the Tiger and
the Badger, the Tapir and the Rhinoceros, are respect-
ively members of the same orders. These successive pairs
of animals may, and some do, differ from one another im-
mensely, in such matters as the proportions and structure
of their limbs ; the number of their dorsal and lumbar
vertebrse ; the adaptation of their frames to climbing,
leaping, or running ; the number and form of their teeth ;
and the characters of their skulls and of the contained
brain. But, with all these differences, they are so closely
connected in all the more important and fundamental
characters of their organization, and so distinctly sepa-
rated by these same characters from other animals, that
zoologists find it necessary to group them together as
members of one order. And if any new animal were dis-
covered, and were found to present no greater difference
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 85
from the Kangaroo and the Opossum, for example, than
these animals do from one another, the zoologist would
not only be logically compelled to rank it in the same
order with these, but he would not think of doing other-
wise.
Bearing this obvious' course of zoological reasoning in
mind, let us endeavour for a moment to disconnect our
thinking selves from the mask of humanity ; let us ima-
gine ourselves scientific Saturnians, if you will, fairly ac-
quainted with such animals as now inhabit the Earth, and
employed in discussing the relations they bear to a new
and singular 'erect and featherless. biped,' which some
enterprising traveller, overcoming the difficulties of space
and gravitation, has brought from that distant planet for
our inspection, well preserved, may be, in a cask of rum.
We should all, at once, agree upon placing him among the
mammalian vertebrates ; and his lower jaw, his molars,
and his brain, would leave no room for doubting the sys-
tematic position of the new genus among those mammals,
whose young are nourished during gestation by means of
a placenta, or what are called the ' placental mammals.'
Further, the most superficial study would at once con-
vince us that, among the orders of placental mammals,
neither the Whales nor the hoofed creatures, nor the
Sloths and Ant-eaters, nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and
Bears, still less the Rodent Rats and Rabbits, or the In-
sectivorous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, could claim
our ''Homo ' as one of themselves.
There would remain then, but one order for compari-
son, that of the Aj^es (using that word in its broadest
sense), and the question for discussion would narrow itself
to this — is Man so different from any of these Apes that
he must form an order by himself? Or does he differ
86 THE KELATIONS OF MAN
less from them than they differ from one another, and
hence mnst take his place in the same order with them ?
Being happily free from all real, or imaginary, per-
sonal interest in the results of the inquiry thus set afoot,
we should proceed to weigh the arguments on one side and
on the other, with as much judicial calmness as if the
question related to a new Opossum. We should endea-
vour to ascertain, without seeking either to magnify or
diminish them, all the characters by which our new Mam-
mal differed from the Apes ; and if we found that these
were of less structural value, than those which distinguish
certain members of the Ape order from others universally
admitted to be of the same order, we should undoubtedly
place the newly discovered tellurian genus with them.
I now proceed to detail the facts which seem to me to
leave us no choice but to adopt the last mentioned course.
It is quite certain that the Ape which most nearly ap-
proaches man, in the totality of its organization, is either
the Chimpanzee or the Gorilla ; and as it makes no prac-
tical difference, for the purposes of my present argument,
which is selected for comparison, on the one hand, with
Man, and on the other hand, with the rest of the Pri-
mates,* I shall select the latter (so far as its organization
is known) — as a brute now so celebrated in prose and
verse, that all must have heard of him, and have formed
some conception of his appearance. I shall take up as
many of the most important points of difference between
man and this remarkable creature, as the space at my dis-
posal will allow me to discuss, and the necessities of the
argument demand ; and I shall inquire into the value and
* We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with the brain of the Go-
rilla, and therefore, in discussing cerebral characters, I shall take that of the
Chimpanzee as my highest term among the Apes.
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 87
magnitude of these differences, when placed side by side
with those which separate the Gorilla from other animals
of the same order.
In the general proportions of the body and limbs there
is a remarkable difference between the Gorilla and Man,
which at once strikes the eye. The Gorilla's brain-case is
smaller, its trunk larger, its lower limbs shorter, its upper
limbs longer in proportion than those of Man.
I find that the vertebral column of a full grown Gorilla,
in the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, meas-
ures 27 inches along its anterior curvature, fi'om the upper
edge of the atlas, or first vertebra of the neck, to the lower
extremity of the sacrum ; that the arm, without the hand,
is 314 inches long ; that the leg, without the foot, is 26^
inches long ; that the hand is 9|- inches long ; the foot
11 J inches long.
In other words, taking the length of the spinal column
as 100, the arm equals 115, the leg 96, the hand 36, and
the foot 4:1.
In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the same col-
lection, the proportions, by the same measurement, to the
spinal column, taken as 100, are — the arm 78, the leg 110,
the hand 26, and the foot 32. In a woman of the same
race the arm is 83, and the leg 120, the hand and foot
remaining the same. In a European skeleton I find the
arm to be 80, the leg 117, the hand 26, the foot 35.
Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at first sight,
in its proportions to the spine in the Gorilla and in the
Man — being very slightly shorter than the spine in the
former, and between j\ and } longer than the spine in
the latter. The foot is longer and the hand much longer
in the Gorilla ; but the great difference -is caused by the
arms, which are very much longer than the spine in the
Gorilla, very much shorter than the spine in the Man.
88 THE BELATIONS OF MAN
The question now arises liow are the other Apes re-
lated to the Gorilla in these respects — taking the length
of the spine, measured in the same way, at 100. In an
adult Chimpanzee, the arm is only 96, the leg 90, the hand
43, the foot 39 — so that the hand and the leg depart more
from the human proportion and the arm less, while the
foot is about the same as in the Gorilla.
In the Orang, the arms are very much longer than in
the Gorilla (122), while the legs are shorter (88) ; the foot
is longer than the hand (52 and 48), and both are much
longer in proportion to the spine.
In the other man-like Apes again, the Gibbons, these
proportions are still further altered ; the length of the
arms being to that of the spinal column as 19 to 11 ; while
the legs are also a third longer than the spinal column, so
as to be longer than in Man, instead of shorter. The
hand is half as long as the spinal column, and the foot,
shorter than the hand, is about /yths of the length of the
spinal column.
Thus Hylobates is as much longer in the arms than the
Gorilla, as the Gorilla is longer in the arms than Man ;
while, on the other hand, it is as much longer in the legs
than the Man, as the Man is longer in the legs than the
Gorilla, so that it contains within itself the extremest de-
viations from the average length of both pairs of limbs
(see the Frontispiece).
The Mandrill presents a middle condition, the arms
and legs being nearly equal in length, and both being
shorter than the spinal column ; while hand and foot
have nearly the same proportions to one another and to
the spine, as in Man.
In the Spider monkey {Ateles) the leg is longer than
the spine, and the arm than the leg ; and, finally, in that
remarkable Lemurine form, the Indri, {Lichanotus) the
TO THE LOWEK ANIMAJLS. 89
leg is about as long as the spinal column, while the arm is
not more than j| of its length ; the hand having rather
less and the foot rather more, than one third the length
of the spinal column.
These examples might be greatly multiplied, but they
suffice to show that, in whatever proportion of its limbs
the Gorilla differs from Man, the other Apes depart still
more widely from the Gorilla and that, consequently, such
differences of proportion can have no ordinal value.
We may next consider the differences presented by the
trunk, consisting of the vertebral column, or backbone,
and the ribs and pelvis, or bony hip-basin, which are con-
nected with it, in Man and in the Gorilla respectively.
In Man, in consequence partly of the disposition of the
articular surfaces of the vertebra, and largely of the elas-
tic tension of some of the fibrous bands, or ligaments,
which connect these vertebrae together, the spinal column,
as a whole, has an elegant S-like curvature, being convex
forwards in the neck, concave in the back, convex in the
loins, or lumbar region, and concave again in the sacral
region ; an arrangement which gives much elasticity to
the whole backbone, and diminishes the jar communicated
to the spine, and through it to the head, by locomotion in
the erect position.
Furthermore, under ordinary circumstances, Man has
seven vertebrae in his neck, which are called cervical;
twelve succeed these, bearing ribs and forming the upper
part of the back, whence they are termed dorsal ; five lie
in the loins, bearing no distinct, or free, ribs, and are called
lumhar ; five, united together into a great bone, excavatec]
in front, solidly wedged in between the hip bones, to form
the back of the pelvis, and known by the name of the sa-
crum^ succeed these ; and finally, tlu'ee or four little more
90 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
or less moveable bones, so small as to be insignificant,
constitute the coccyx or rudimentary tail.
In tlie Gorilla, the vertebral column is similarly di-
vided into cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral and coccygeal
vertebras, and tbe total number of cervical and dorsal ver-
tebrse, taken together, is the same as in man ; but the
development of a pair of ribs to the first lumbar vertebra,
which is an exceptional occurrence in Man, is the rule in
the Gorilla ; and hence, as lumbar are distinguished from
dorsal vertebrae only by the presence or absence of free
ribs, the seventeen " dorso-lumbar " vertebrae of the Go-
rilla are divided into thirteen dorsal and four lumbar,
while in Man they are twelve dorsal and ^yq lumbar.
Kot only, however, does Man occasionally possess thir-
teen pair of ribs,"^ but the Gorilla sometimes has fourteen
pairs, whilp an Orang-Utan skeleton in the Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons has twelve dorsal and ^\q lum-
bar vertebrae, as in Man. Cuvier notes the same number
in a Hylobates. On the other hand, among the lower
A23es, many possess twelve dorsal and six or seven lumbar
vertebrae ; the Douroucouli has fourteen dorsal and eight
lumbar, and a Lemur {Stenops tardigradus) has fifteen
dorsal and* nine lumbar vertebrae.
The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole, differs
from that of Man in the less marked character of its
curves, especially in the slighter convexity of the lumbar
region. I^evertheless, the curves are present, and are
quite obvious in young skeletons of the Gorilla and Chim-
* " More than once," says Peter Camper, " have I met with more than six
lumbar vertebrae in man. . . . Once I found thirteen ribs and four lum-
bar vertebrae." Fallopius noted thirteen pair of ribs and only four lumbar
vertebrae ; and Eustachius once found eleven dorsal vertebrae and six lumbar
vertebrae. — ' CEuvres de Pierre Camper,' T. 1, p. 42. As Tyson states, his
' Pygmie ' had thirteen pair of ribs and five lumbar vertebrae. The question
of the curves of the spinal column in the Apes requires further investigation.
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS.
91
Gorilla.
GiUon.
FIIL/ER,
Fig. 16. — Front and side views of the bony pelvis of Man, the Gorilla and
Gibbon : reduced from drawings made from nature, of the same absolute
length, by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins.
92 THE EELATIONS OF MAN
panzee which have been prepared without removal of the
ligaments. In yoimg Orangs similarly preserved, on the
other hand, the spinal cokimn is either straight, or even
concave forwards, throughout the lumbar region.
Whether we take these characters then, or suijh minor
ones as those which are derivable from the proportional
length of the spines in the cervical vertebrae, and the like,
there is no doubt whatsoever as to the marked difference
between Man and the Gorilla ; but there is as little, that
equally marked differences, of the very same order, obtain
between the Gorilla and the lower apes.
The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man is a
strikingly human part of his organization ; the expanded
haunch bones affording support for his viscera during his
habitually erect posture, and giving space for the attach-
ment of the great muscles which enable. him to assume
and to preserve that attitude. In these respects the pelvis
of the Gorilla differs very considerably from his (Fig. 16).
But go no lower than the Gibbon, and see how vastly
more he differs from the Gorilla than the latter does from
Man, even in this structure. Look at the flat^ narrow
haunch bones — the long and narrow passage — the coarse,
outwardly curved, ischiatic prominences on which the
Gibbon habitually rests, and which are coated by the so-
called " callosities," dense patches of skin, wholly absent
in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, and in the Orang, as
in Man !
In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the differ-
ence becomes more striking still, the pelvis acquiring an
altogether quadrupedal character.
But now let us turn to a nobler and more characteris-
tic organ — that by which the human frame seems to be,
and indeed is, so strongly distinguished from all others, —
I mean the skull. The differences between a Gorilla's
TO THE LOWEK ANIMALS. 93
skull and a Man's are truly immense (Fig. lY). In the
former, the face, formed largely by the massive jaw-bones,
predominates over the brain case, or cranium proper ; in
the latter, the proportions of the two are reversed. In
the JVIan, the occipital foramen, through which passes the
great nervous cord connecting the brain with the nerves
of the body, is placed just behind the centre of the base
of the skull, which thus becomes evenly balanced in the
erect posture ; in the Gorilla it lies in the posterior third
of that base. lu the Man, the surface of the skull is com-
paratively smooth, and the supraciliary ridges or brow
prominences usually project but little — while, in the Go-
rilla, vast crests are developed upon the skull, and the
brow ridges overhang the cavernous orbits, like great
penthouses.
Sections of the skulls, however, show that some of the
apparent defects of the Gorilla's cranium arise, in fact,
not so much from deficiency of brain case as from exces-
sive development of the parts of the face. The cranial
cavity is not ill-shajDed, and the forehead is not truly flat-
tened or very retreating, its really well-formed curve being
simply disguised by the mass of bone which is built up
against it (Fig. 17).
But the roofs of the orbits rise more obliquely into the
cranial cavity, thus diminishing the space for the lower
part of the anterior lobes of the brain, and the absolute
capacity of the cranium is far less than that of Man. So
far as I am aware, no human cranium belonging to an
adult man has yet been observed with a less cubical ca-
pacity than 62 cubic inches, the smallest cranium observed
in any race of men by Morton, measuring 63 cubic inches ;
while, on the other hand, the most capacious Gorilla skull
yet measured has a content of not more . than 3^ cubic
inches. Let us assume, for simphcity's sake, that the low-
94: THE RELATIONS OF MAN
est Man's skull has twice tlie capacity of the highest Go-
rilla.*
'No doubt, this is a very striking difference, but it loses
much of its apparent systematic value, when viewed by the
light of certain other equally indubitable facts respecting
cranial capacities.
The first of these is, that the difference in the volume
of the cranial cavity of different races of mankind is far
greater, absolutely, than that between the lowest Man
and the highest Ape, while, relatively, it is about the
same. For the largest human skull measured by Morton,
contained 114 cubic inches, that is to say, had very nearly
double the capacity of the smallest ; while its absolute
* It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes contain as little as
27 ounces of water, which would give a capacity of about 46 cubic inches.
The minimum capacity which I have assumed above, however, is based upon
the valuable tables published by Professor R. Wagner in his " Yrostudien zu
einer wisseuschaftlicheu Morphologic und Physiologic des menschlichen Ge-
hirns.' As the result of the careful weighing of more than 900 human
brains, Professor Wagner states that one-half weighed between 1200 and 1400
grammes, and that about two-ninths, consisting for the most part of male
brains, exceed 1400 grammes. The lightest brain of an adult male, with
sound mental faculties, recorded by Wagner, weighed 1020 grammes. As a
gramme equals 15,4 grains, and a cubic inch of water contains 252.4 grains,
this is equivalent to 62 cubic inches of water ; so that as brain is heavier than
water, we are perfectly safe against erring on the side of diminution in taking
this as the smallest capacity of any adult male human brain. The only adult
male brain, weighing as little as 9*70 grammes, is that of an idiot ; but the
brain of an adult woman, against the soundness of whose faculties nothing ap-
pears, weighed as little as 907 grammes (55.3 cubic inches of water) ; and
Reid gives an adult female brain of still smaller capacity. The heaviest brain
(1872 grammes, or about 115 cubic inches) was, however, that of a woman;
next to it comes the brain of Cuvier (1861 grammes), then Byron (1807
grammes), and then an insane person (1783 grammes). The lightest adult
brain recorded (720 grammes) was that of an idiotic female. The brains of
five children, four years old, weighed between 1275 and 992 grammes. So
that it may be safelj^ said, that an average European child of four years old
has a brain twice as large as that of an adult Gorilla.
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 95
preponderance, of 52 cubic inclies — is far greater than
that by wMcb the lowest adult male human cranium sur-
passes the largest of the Gorillas (62 — 34:^ — 27i). Sec-
ondly, the adult crania of Gorillas which have as yet been
measured differ among themselves by nearly one-third, the
maximum capacity being 34,5 cubic inches, the minimum
24 cubic inches ; and, thirdly, after making all due allow-
ance for difference of size, the cranial capacities of some
of the lower apes fall nearly as much, relatively, below
those of the higher Apes as the latter fall below Man.
Thus, even in the important matter of cranial capacity,
Men differ more widely from one another than they do
from the Apes ; while the lowest Apes differ as much, in
proportion, from the highest, as the latter does from Man.
The last proposition is still better illustrated by the study
of the modifications which other parts of the cranium un-
dergo in the Simian series.
It is the large proportional size of the facial bones and
the great projection of the jaws which confers upon the
Gorilla's skull its small facial angle and brutal character.
But if we consider the proportional size of the facial
bones to the skull proper only, the little Chrysothrix (Fig.
W) differs very widely from the Gorilla, and in the same
way as Man does ; while the Baboons {CynocejpJiahis, Fig.
17) exaggerate the gross proportions of the muzzle of the
great Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and human
by comparison with theirs. The difference between the
Gorilla and the Baboon is even greater than it appears at
first sight ; for the great facial mass of the former is
largely due to a downward development of the jaws ; an
essentially human character, superadded upon that almost
purely forward, essentially brutal, development of the
same parts which characterizes the Baboon, and yet more
remarkably distinguishes the Lemur.
96
THE RELATIONS OF MAN
AUSTRALIAN.
CHRYSOTHRIX.
GORILLA.
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OCEPHALUS.
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TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 97
Similarly tlie occipital foramen of Mycetes (Fig. 17)
and still more of the Lemurs, is situated completely in the
posterior face of the skull, or as much further back than
that of the Gorilla, as that of the Gorilla is further back
than that of Man ; while, as if to render patent the futility
of the attempt to base any broad classificatory distinction
on such a character, the same group of Platyrhine, or
American monkeys, to which the Mycetes belongs, con-
tains the Chrysothrix, whose occipital foramen is situated
far more forward than in any other ape, and nearly ap-
proaches the position it holds in Man.
Again, the Orang's skull is as devoid of excessively
developed supraciliary prominences as a Man's, though
some varieties exhibit great crests elsewhere (see p. 54) ;
and in some of the Cebine apes and in the Chrysoihrix^
the cranium is as smooth and rounded as that of Man
himself.
What is true of these leading characteristics of the
skull, holds good, as may be imagined, of all minor fea-
tures ; so that for every constant difference between the
Gorilla's skull and the Man's, a similar constant difference
of the same order (that is to say, consisting in excess or
defect of the same quality) may be found between the Go-
rilla's skull and that of some other ape. So that, for the
skull, no less than for the skeleton in general, the proposi-
tion holds good, that the differences between Man and the
Gorilla .are of smaller value than those between the Gorilla
and some other Apes.
In connection with the skull, I may speak of the teeth
— organs which have a peculiar classificatory value, and
whose resemblances and differences of number, form, and
succession, taken as a whole, are usually regarded as more
trustworthy indicators of affinity than any others.
5
98 ' THE RELATIONS OF MAN
Man is provided with two sets of teeth — milk teeth
and permanent teeth. The former consist of four incisors,
or cutting-teeth ; two canines, or eye-teeth ; and four mo-
lars, or grinders, in each jaw, making twenty in all. The
latter (Fig. 18) comprise four incisors, two canines, four
small grinders, called premolars or false molars, and six
large grinders, or true molars in each jaw — making thirty-
two in all. The internal incisors are larger than the ex-
ternal pair, in the upper jaw, smaller than the external
pair, in the lower jaw. The crowns of the upper molars
exhibit four cusps, or blunt-pointed elevations, and a ridge
crosses the crown obliquely, from the inner, anterior, cusp
to the outer, posterior cusp (Fig. 18 m^). The anterior
lower molars have five cusps, three external and two in-
ternal. The premolars have two cusps, one internal and
one external, of which the outer is the higher.
In all these respects the dentition of the Gorilla may
be described in the same terms as that of Man ; but in
other matters it exhibits many and important differences
(Fig. 18).
Thus the teeth of man constitute a regular and even
series — without any break and without any marked pro-
jection of one tooth above the level of the rest ; a pecu-
liarity which, as Cuvier long ago showed, is shared by no
other mammal save one — as different a creature from man
as can well be imagined — namely, the long extinct Anoplo-
thermm. The teeth of the Gorilla, on the contrary, ex-
hibit a break, or interval, termed the diastema, in both
jaws : in front of the eye-tooth, or between it and the
outer incisor, in the' upper jaw ; behind the eye-tooth, or
between it and the front false molar in the lower jaw.
Into this break in the series, in each jaw, fits the canine
of the opposite jaw ; the size of the eye-tooth in the Go-
rilla being so great that it projects, like a tusk, far beyond
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS.
99
JSfan,
Gorilla.
Cynocepfialus.
7Il2
m^
X2
CheiTomy!;.
Fig. 18. — ^Lateral views, of the same length, of the upper jaws of various
Primates. ^, incisors ; c, canines ; pm^ premolars ; m, molars. A line is
drawn through the first molar of Man, Gorilla^ CynocepJialus^ and Cebus, and
the grinding surface of the second molar is shown in each, its anterior and in-
ternal angle being just above the m of m\
100 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
the general level of tlie other teeth. The roots of the false
molar teeth of the Gorilla, again, are more complex than
in Man, and the proportional size of the molars is difler-
ent. The Gorilla has the crown of the hindmost grinder
of the lower jaw more complex, and the order of eruption
of the permanent teeth is different ; the permanent ca-
nines making their appearance before the second and third
molars in Man, and after them in the Gorilla.
Thns, while the teeth of the Gorilla closely resemble
those of Man in number, kind, and in the general pattern
of their crowns, they exhibit marked differences from
those of Man in secondary respects, such as relative size,
number of fangs, and order of appearance.
But, if the teeth of the Gorilla be compared with those
of an Ape, no further removed from it than a Cynocepha-
lus, or Baboon, it will be found that differences and re-
semblances of the same order are easily observable ; but
that many of the points in which the Gorilla resembles
Man are those in which it differs from the Baboon ; while
various respects in which it differs from Man are exagger-
ated in the Cynocephalus. The number and the nature
of the teeth remain the same in the Baboon as in the Go-
rilla and in Man. But the pattern of the Baboon's upper
molars is quite different from that described above (Fig.
18), the canines are proportionally longer and more knife-
like ; the anterior premolar in the lower jaw is specially
modified ; the posterior molar of the lower jaw is still
larger and more complex than in the Gorilla.
Passing from the old-world Apes to those of the new
world, we meet with a change of much greater importance
than any of these. In such a genus as Cebus^ for example
(Fig. 18), it will be found that while in some secondary
points, such as the projection of the canines and the dias-
tema, the resemblance to the great ape is preserved ; in
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 101
other and most important respects, the den;titioii is ex-
tremely different. Instead of 20 teeth in the milk set,
there are 24 : instead of 32 teeth in the permanent set,
there are 36, the false molars being increased from eight
to twelve. And in form the crowns of the molars are
very unlike those of the Gorilla, and differ far more widely
from the human pattern.
The Marmosets, on the other hand, exhibit the same
number of teeth as Man and the Gorilla ; but, notwith-
standing this, their dentition is very different, for they
have four more false molars, like the other American mon-
keys — but as they have four fewer true molars, the total
remains the same. And passing from the American apes
to the Lemurs, the dentition becomes still more com-
pletely and essentially different from that of the Gorilla.
The incisors begin to vary both in number and in form.
The molars acquire, more and more, a many-pointed, in-
sectivorous character, and in one Genus, the Aye- Aye
{ClieiroTYiys)^ the canines disappear, and the teeth com-
pletely simulate those of a Eodent (Fig. 18).
Hence it is obvious that, greatly as the dentition of the
highest Ape differs from that of Man, it differs far more
widely from that of the lower and lowest Apes.
TVTiatever part of the animal fabric — whatever series
of muscles, whatever viscera might be selected for com-
parison — the result would be the same — the lower Apes
and the Gorilla would differ more than the Gorilla and
the Man. I cannot attempt in this place to follow out all
these comparisons in detail, and indeed it is unnecessary I
should do so. But certain real, or supposed, structural dis-
tinctions between man and the apes remain, upon which
so much stress has been laid, that they require careful
consideration, in order that the true value may be assigned
102 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
to those whicli are real, and the emptiness of those which
are fictitious may be exposed. I refer to the characters of
the hand, the foot, and the brain.
Man has been defined as the only animal possessed of
two hands terminating his fore limbs, and of two feet end-
ing his hind limbs, while it has been said that all the apes
possess four hands ; and he has been affirmed to difier
fundamentally from all the apes in the characters of his
brain, which alone, it has been strangely asserted and re-
asserted, exhibits the structures known to anatomists as
the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu of the lateral ven-
tricle and the hippocampus minor.
That the former proposition should have gained gen-
eral acceptance is not surprising — indeed, at first sight,
appearances are much in its favour : but, as for the second,
one can only admire the surpassing courage of its enunci-
ator, seeing that it is an innovation which is not only op-
posed to generally and justly accepted doctrines, but which
is directly negatived by the testimony of all original in-
quirers, who have specially investigated the matter : and
that it neither has been, nor can be, supported by a single
anatomical preparation. It would, in fact, be unworthy
of serious refutation, except for the general and natural
belief that deliberate and reiterated assertions must have
some foundation.
Before we can discuss the first point with advantage
we must consider with some attention, and compare to-
gether, the structure of the human hand and that of the
human foot, so that we may have distinct and clear ideas
of what constitutes a hand and what a foot.
The external form of the human hand is familiar
enough to every one. It consists of a stout wrist followed
by a broad palm, formed of flesh, and tendons, and skin,
TO THE LOWEE ANIMALS. 103
binding together four bones, and dividing into fonr long
and flexible digits, or fingers, eacli of which bears on the
})ack of its last joint a broad and flattened nail. The long-
est cleft between any two digits is rather less than half as
lono; as the hand. From the outer side of the base of the
palm a stout digit goes off, having only two joints instead
of three ; so short, that it only reaches to a little beyond
the middle of the first joint of the finger next it ; and fur-
ther remarkable by its great mobility, in consequence of
which it can be directed outwards, almost at a right angle
to the rest. This digit is called the 'pollex,^ or thumb ;
and, like the others, it bears a flat nail upon the back of
its terminal joint. In consequence of the proportions and
mobility of the thumb, it is what is termed ''" opposable ; "
in other words, its extremity can, with the greatest ease,
be brought into contact with the extremities of any of the
fingers ; a property upon which the possibility of our
carrying into effect the conceptions of the mind so largely
depends.
The external form of the foot differs widely from that
of the hand ; and yet, when closely compared, the two
present some singular resemblances. Thus the ankle cor-
responds in a manner with the wrist ; the sole with the
palm ; the toes with the fingers ; the great toe with the
thumb. But the toes, or digits of the foot, are far shorter
in proportion than the digits of the hand, and are less
moveable, the want of mobility being most striking in the
great toe — which, again, is very much larger in propor-
tion to the other toes than the thumb to the fingers. In
considering this point, however, it must not be forgotten
that the civilized great toe, confined and cramped from
childhood upwards, is seen to a great disadvantage, and
that in uncivilized and barefooted people it retains a great
amount of mobility, and even some "sort of opposabihty.
104:
THE RELATIONS OF MAN
The Chinese boatmen are said to be able to pull an oar ;
the artisans of Bengal to weave, and the Carajas to steal
fishhooks by its help ; though, after all, it must be recol-
lected that the structure of its joints and the arrangement
of its bones, necessarily render its prehensile action far less
perfect than that of the thumb.
But to gain a precise conception of the resemblances
and differences of the hand and foot, and of the distinctive
Fig. 19. — The skeleton of the Hand and Foot of Man reduced from Dr.
Carter's drawings in Gray's ' Anatomy.' The hand is drawn to a larger scale
than the foot. The line a a in the hand indicates the boundary between the
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 105-
characters of each, we must look below tlie skin, and com-
pare the bony framework and its motor apparatus in each
(Fig. 19).
The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region which
we term the wrist, and which is technically called the
carpus — two rows of closely fitted polygonal bones, four
in each row, which are tolerably equal in size. The bones
of the first row with the bones of the forearm, form the
wrist or joint, and are arranged side by side, no one
greatly exceeding or overlapping the rest.
The four bones of the second row of the carpus bear
the four long bones which support the palm of the hand.
The fifth bone of the same character is articulated in a
much more free and moveable manner than the others,
with its carpal bone, and forms the base of the thumb.
These are called metacarpal bones, and they carry the
jphalanges^ or bones of the digits, of which there are two
in the thumb and three in each of the fingers.
The skeleton of the foot is very like that of the hand
in some respects. Thus there are three phalanges in each
of the lesser toes, and only two in the great toe, which
answers to the thumb. There is a long bone termed met-
atarsal^ answering to the metacarpal, for each digit ; and
the tarsus which corresponds with the carpus, presents
four short polygonal bones in a row, which correspond
very closely with the four carpal bones of the second row
of the hand. In other respects the foot differs very widely
from the hand. Thus the great toe is the longest digit
carpus and the metacarpus ; h h that between the latter and the proximal pha-
langes ; c c marks the ends of the distal phalanges. The line a a' in the foot
indicates the boundary between the tarsus and the metatarsus \ b' h' marks
that between the metatarsus and the proximal phalanges ; and c c bounds
the ends of the distal phalanges : ca, the calcaneum ; as, the astragalus ; sc,
the scaphoid bone in the tarsus.
5*
106 THE KELATIONS OF MAN
but one ; and its metatarsal is far less moveably articu-
lated with the tarsus, than the metacarpal of the thumb
with the carpus. But a far more important distinction
lies in the fact that, instead of four more tarsal bones there
are only three ; and that these three are not arranged side
by side, or in one row. One of them, the os colds or heel
bone (c<^),lies externally, and sends back the large project-
ing heel ; another, the astragalus (as), rests on this by one
face, and by another, forms, with the bones of the leg, the
ankle joint ; while a third face, directed forwards, is sepa-
rated from the three inner tarsal bones of the row next
the metatarsus by a bone called the scaphoid {sc).
Thus there is a fundamental difference in the structure
of the foot and the hand, observable when the carpus and
the tarsus are contrasted ; and there are differences of
degree noticeable when the proportions and the mobility
of the metacarpals and metatarsals, with their respective
digits, are compared together.
The same two classes of differences become obvious
when the muscles of the hand are compared with those of
the foot.
Three principal sets of muscles, called " flexors," bend
the fingers and thumb, as in clenching the fist, and three
sets, — the extensors — extend them, as in straightening the
fingers. These muscles are all " long muscles ; " that is
to say, the fleshy part of each, lying in and being fij^ed
to the bones of the arm, is, at the other end, continued
into tendons, or rounded cords, which pass into the hand,
and are ultimately fixed to the bones which are to be
moved. Thus, when the fingers are bent, the fieshy parts
of the flexors of the fingers, placed in the arm, contract,
in virtue of their peculiar endowment as muscles ; and
pulling the tendiaous cords, connected with their ends,
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 107
m
cause them to pull down the bones of the fingers towards
the palm.
Not only are the principal flexors of the fingers and of
the thumb long muscles, but they remain quite distinct
from one another throughout their whole length.
In the foot, there are also three principal flexor mus-
cles of the digits or toes, and three principal extensors ;
but one extensor and one flexor are short muscles ; that is
to say, their fleshy parts are not situated in the leg (whicl^
corresponds with the arm), but in the back and in the sole
of the foot — regions which correspond with the back and
the palm of the hand.
Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes, and
of the long flexor of the great toe, when they reach the
sole of the foot, do not remain distinct from one another,
as the flexors in the palm of the hand do, but they become
united and commingled in a very curious manner — while
their united tendons receive an accessory muscle con-
nected with the heel-bone.
But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive character
about the muscles of the foot is the existence of what is
termed the peronoeus longus^ a long muscle fixed to the
outer bone of the leg, and sending its tendon to the outer
ankle, behind and below which it passes, and then crosses
the foot obliquely to be attached to the base of the great
toe. No muscle in the hand exactly corresponds with
this, which is eminently a foot muscle.
To resume — the foot of man is distinguished from his
hand by the following absolute anatomical differences : —
1. By the arrangement of the tarsal bones.
2. By having a short flexor and a short extensor
muscle of the digits.
3. By possessing the muscle termed jperonceiis Ixm-
gus.
108 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
And if we desirfe to ascertain wliether the terminal
division of a L'mb, in other Primates, is to be called a fpot
or a hand, it is bj the presence or absence of these char-
acters that we must be guided, and not by the mere pro-
portions and greater or lesser mobility of the great toe,
which may vary indefinitely without any , fundamental
alteration in the structure of the foot.
Keeping these considerations in mind, let us now turn
to the limbs of the Gorilla. The terminal division of the
fore Kmb presents no difficulty — bone for bone and muscle
for muscle, are found to be arranged essentially as in man,
or with such minor differences as are found as varieties in
man. The Gorilla's hand is clumsier, heavier, and has a
thumb somewhat shorter in proportion than that of man ;
but no one has ever doubted its being a ti-ue hand.
At first sight, the termination of the hind limb of the
Gorilla looks very hand-like, and as it is still more so in
many of the lower apes, it is not wonderful that the appel-
lation " Quadrumana," or four-handed creatures, adopted
from the older anatomists'^ by Blumenbach, and unfortu-
nately rendered current by Cuvier, should have gained
such wide acceptance as a name for the Simian group.
But the most cursory anatomical investigation at once
* In speaking of the foot of his "Pygmie," Tyson remarks, p. 13 : —
"But this part in the formation and in its function too, being Kker a Hand
than a Foot : for the distinguishing this sort of animals from others, I have
thought whether it might not be reckoned and called rather Quadru-manus
than Quadrupes, i. e. a four-handed rather than a four-footed animal."
As this passage was published in 1699, M. I, G. St. Hilaire is clearly in
error in ascribing the invention of the term " quadrumanous " to BufFon,
though "bimauous" may belong to him. Tyson uses " Quadrumanus " in
several places, as at p. 91 " Our Fygmie is no Man, nor yet the
common Ape, but a sort of Animal between both ; and though a Biped, yet
of the Qiiadrumanus-^\n6. : though some Men too have been observed to use
their Feet like Hands, as I have seen several."
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 109
proves that the resemblance of the so-called " hind hand "
to a true hand, is only skin deep, and that, in all essential
respects, the hind limb of the Gorilla is as truly terminated
by a foot as that of man. The tarsal bones, in all impor-
tant circumstances of number, disposition, and form, re-
semble those of man (Fig. 20). The metatarsals and
digits, on the other hand, are proportionally longer and
more slender, while the great toe is not only proportion-
ally shorter and weaker, but its metatarsal bone is united
by a more moveable joint with the tarsus. At the same
time, the foot is set more obliquely upon the leg than in
man.
As to the muscles, there is a» short flexor, a short ex-
tensor, and a joeronceus longus^ while the tendons of the
long flexors of the great toe and of the other toes are
united together and with an accessory fleshy bundle.
The hind limb of the Gorilla, therefore, ends in a true
foot, with a very moveable great toe. It is a prehensile
foot, indeed, but in no sense a hknd : it is a foot which
difiers from that of man not in any fundamental charac-
ter, but in mere proportions, in the degree of mobility, and
in the secondary arrangement of its parts.
It must not be supposed, however, because I speak of
these differences as not fundamental, that I wish to under-
rate their value. They are important enough in their
way, the structure of the foot being in strict correlation
with that of the rest of the organism in each case. Nor
can it be doubted that the greater division of physiologi-
cal labour in Man, so that the function of support is
thrown wholly on the leg and foot, is an advance in the
organization of very great moment to him ; but, after all,
regarded anatomically, the resemblances between the foot
of Man and the foot of the Gorilla are far more striking
and important than the differences.
no
THE RELATIONS OF MAN
I have dwelt upon this point at length, because it is
one regarding which much delusion prevails ; but I might
have passed it over without detriment to my argument,
which only requires me to show that, be the differences
between the hand and foot of Man and those of the Go-
rilla what they may — the differences between those of the
Gorilla and those of the lower Apes are much greater.
It is not necessary to descend lower in the scale than
the Orang for conclusive evidence on this head.
The thumb of the Orang differs more from that of the
Gorilla than the thumb of the Gorilla differs from that of
Man, not only by its shortness, but by the absence of any
Qmnff
Fig. 20. — Foot of Man, Gorilla, and Orang-Utan of the same absolute
length, to show the differences in proportion of each. Letters as in Fig. 19.
Reduced from original drawings by Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins.
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. Ill
special long flexor muscle. The carpus of the Orang,
like that of most lower apes, contains nine bones, while in
the Gorilla, as in Man and the Chimpanzee, there are
only eight.
The Orang's foot (Fig. 20) is still more aberrant ; its
very long toes and short tarsus, short great toe, short and
raised heel, great obliquity of articulation in the leg, and
absence of a long flexor tendon to the great toe, separating
it far more widely from the foot of the Gorilla than the
latter is separated from that of Man.
But, in some of the lower apes, the hand and foot
diverge still more from those of the Gorilla, than they do
in the Orang. The thumb ceases to be opposable in the
American monkeys ; is reduced to a mere rudiment cov-
ered by the skin in the Spider Monkey ; and is directed
forwards and armed with a curved claw like the other
digits, in the Marmosets — so that, in all these cases, there
can be no doubt but that the hand is more difierent from
that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's hand is from Man's.
And as to the foot, the great toe of the Marmoset is
still more insignificant in proportion than that of the
Orang — while in the Lemurs it is very large, and as com-
pletely thumb-like and opposable as in the Gorilla — but
in these animals the second toe is often irregularly modi-
fied, and in some species the two principal bones of the
tarsus, the astragalus and the os calcis, are so immensely
elongated as to render the foot, so far, totally unlike that
of any other mammal.
So with regard to the muscles. The short flexor of
the toes of the Gorilla differs from that of Man by the cir-
cimistance that one slip of the muscle is attached, not to
the heel bone, but to the tendons of the long flexors. The
lower Apes depart from the Gorilla by an exaggeration
of the same character, two, three, or more, slips becoming
112 THE EEJuATIONS OF MAN
fixed to the long flexor tendons — or by a multiplication of
the slips. — Again, the Gorilla differs slightly from Man in
the mode of interlacing of the long flexor tendons : and the
lower apes differ from the Gorilla in exhibiting yet other,
sometimes very complex, arrangements of the same parts,
and occasionally in the absence of the accessory fleshy
bundle.
Throughout all these modifications it must be recol-
lected that the foot loses no one of its essential characters.
Every Monkey and Lemur exhibits the characteristic ar-
rangement of tarsal bones, possesses a short flexor and
short extensor muscle, and ^peronoeus longus. Varied as
the proportions and appearance of the organ may be, the
terminal division of the hind limb remains, in plan and
principle of construction, a foot, and never, in those re-
spects, can be confounded with a hand.
Hardly any part of the bodily frame, then, could be
found better calculated to illustrate the truth that the
structural differences between Man and the highest Ape
are of less value than those between the highest and the
lower Apes, than the hand or the foot, and yet, perhaps,
there is one organ the study of which enforces the same
conclusion in a still more striking manner — and that is
the Brain.
But before entering upon the precise question of the
amount of difference between the Ape's brain and that of
Man, it is necessary that we should clearly understand
what constitutes a great, and what a small difference in
cerebral structure ; and we shall be best enabled to do
this by a brief study of the chief modifications which the
brain exhibits in the series of vertebrate animals.
The brain of a fish is very small, compared with the
spinal cord into which it is continued, and with the nerves
which come off from it : of the segments of which it is
TO THE LOWEK ANIMALS. 113
composed — the olfactory lobes, the cerebral hemisphere,
and the succeeding divisions — no one predominates so
much over the rest as to obscure or cover them ; and the
so-called optic lobes are, frequently, the largest masses of
all. In Reptiles, the mass of the brain, relatively to the
spinal cord, increases and the cerebral hemispheres begin
to predominate over the other parts ; while in Birds this
predominance is still more marked. The brain of the
lowest Mammals, such as the duck-billed Platypus and the
Opossums and Kangaroos, exhibits a still more definite
advance in the same direction. The cerebral hemispheres
have now so much increased in size as, more or less, to
hide the representatives of the optic lobes, which remain
comparatively small, so that the brain of a Marsupial is
extremely different from that of a Bird, Reptile, or Fish.
A step higher in the scale, among the placental Mammals,
the structure of the brain acquires a vast modification —
not that it appears much altered externally, in a Rat or in
a Rabbit, from what it is in a Marsupial — nor that the
proportions of its parts are much changed, but an appar-
ently new structure is found between the cerebral hemi-
spheres, connecting them together, as what is called the
* great commissure' or 'corpus callosum.' The subject
requires careful re-investigation, but if the currently re-
ceived statements are correct, the appearance of the ' cor-
pus callosum' in the placental mammals is the greatest
and most sudden modification exhibited by the brain in
the whole series of vertebrated animals — it is the greatest
leap anywhere made by I^ature in her brain work. For
the two halves of the brain being once thus knit together,
the progress of cerebral complexity is traceable through a
complete series of steps from the lowest Rodent, or Insect-
ivore, to Man ; and that complexity consists, chiefly, in
the disproportionate development of the cerebral hemi-
114 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
spheres and of tlie cerebellum, but especially of tbe for-
mer, in respect to the other parts of the brain.
In the lower placental mammals, the cerebral hemi-
spheres leave the proper upper and posterior face of the
cerebellum completely visible, when the brain is viewed
from above, but, in the higher forms, the hinder part of
each hemisphere, separated only by the tentorium (p. 117)
from the anterior face of the cerebellum, inclines back-
wards and downwards, and grows out, as the so-called
" posterior lobe," so as at length to overlap and hide the
cerebellum. In all Mammals, each cerebral hemisphere
contains a cavity which is termed the ' ventricle ' and as
this ventricle is prolonged, on the one hand, forwards, and
on the other downwards, into the substance of the hemi-
sphere, it is said to have two horns or ' cornua,' an ' ante-
rior cornu,' and a ' descending cornu.' When the poste-
rior lobe is well developed, a third prolongation of the
ventricular cavity extends into it, and is called the " pos-
terior cornu."
In the lower and smaller forms of placental Mammals
the surface of the cerebral hemispheres is either smooth or
evenly rounded, or exhibits a very few grooves, which
are technically termed ' sulci,' separating ridges or ' con-
volutions ' of the substance of the brain ; and the smaller
species of all orders tend to a similar smoothness of brain.
But in the higher orders, and especially the larger mem-
bers of these orders, the grooves, or sulci, become ex-
tremely numerous, and the intermediate convolutions pro-
portionately more complicated in their meanderings, until,
in the Elephant, the Porpoise, the higher Apes, and Man,
the cerebral surface appears a perfect labyrinth of tortuous
foldings.
Where a posterior lobe exists and presents its custom-
ary cavity — the posterior cornu — it commonly happens
■ TO THE LOWEE ANIMALS. 115
tliat a particular sulcus appears upon the inner and under
surface of tlie lobe, parallel with and bSieath the floor of
the cornu — wliich is, as it were, arched over the roof of
the sulcus. It is as if the groove had been formed by in-
denting the floor of the posterior horn from without with
a blunt instrument, so that the floor should rise as a con-
vex eminence. I^ow this eminence is what has been
termed the ' Hippocampus minor ; ' the ' Hippocampus
major' being a larger eminence in the floor of the de-
scending cornu. What may be the functional importance
of either of these structures we know not.
As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the im-
possibility of erecting any cerebral barrier between man
and the apes, l^ature has provided us, in the latter ani-
mals, with an almost complete series of gradations from
brains little higher than that of a Rodent, to brains little
lower than that of Man. And it is a remarkable circum-
stance, that though, so far as our present knowledge ex-
tends, there is one true structural break in the series of
forms of Simian brains, this hiatus does not lie between
Man and the man-like apes, but between the lower and
the lowest Simians ; or, in other words, between the old
and new world apes and monkeys, and the Lemurs.
Every Lemur which has yet been examined, in fact, has
its cerebellum partially visible from above, and its poste-
rior lobe, with the contained posterior cornu and hippo-
campus minor, more or less rudimentary. Every Marmo-
set, American monkey, old world monkey. Baboon, or
Man-like ape, on the contrary, has its cerebellum entirely
hidden, posteriorly, by the cerebral lobes, and possesses a
large posterior cornu, with a well developed hippocampus
minor.
In many of these creatures, such as the Saimiri {Chry-
116 THE RELATIONS OF MAK
sothrix)^ the cerebral lobes overlap and extend mncli fur-
ther behind the cerebellum, in proportion, than they do
in man (Fig. lY) — and it is quite certain that, in all, the
cerebellum is completely covered behind, by well devel-
oped posterior lobes. The fact can be verified by every
one who possesses the skull of any old or new world mon-
key. For, inasmuch as the brain in all mammals com-
pletely fills the cranial cavity, it is obvious that a cast of the
interior of the skull will reproduce the general form of the
brain, at any rate with such minute and, for the present
j)urpose, utterly unimportant differences as may result
from the absence of the enveloping membranes of the
brain in the dry skull. But if such a cast be made in
plaster, and compared wdth a similar cast of the interior
of a human skull, it will be obvious that the cast of the
cerebral chamber, representing the cerebrum of the ape,
as completely covers over and overlaps the cast of the
cerebellar chamber, representing the cerebellum, as it
does in the man (Fig. 21). A careless observer, forgetting
that a soft structure like the brain loses its proper shape
the moment it is taken out of the skull, may indeed mis-
take the uncovered condition of the cerebelhim of an ex-
tracted and distorted brain for the natural relations of the
parts ; but his error must become patent even to himself
if he try to replace the brain within the cranial chamber.
To suppose that the cerebellum of an ape is naturally un-
covered behind is a miscomprehension comparable only to
that of one who should imagine that a man's lungs always
occupy but a small portion of the thoracic cavity — because
they do so when the chest is opened, and their elasticity
is no longer neutralized by the pressure of the air.
And the error is the less excusable, as it must become
apparent to every one w^ho examines a section of the
skull of any ape above a Lemur, without taking the
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS.
117
trouble to make a cast of it. For there is a very marked
groove in every such skull, as in the human skull — which
indicates the line of attachment of what is termed the ten-
toriicm — a sort of parchment-like shelf, or partition, which,
Man.
Chimpanzee,
Fig. 21. — Drawings of the internal casts of a Man's and of a Chimpanzee's
skull, of the same absolute length, and placed in corresponding positions, A.
Cerebrum ; B. Cerebellum. The former drawing is taken from a cast in the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, the latter from the photograph
118 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
in the recent state, is interposed between the cereBrnm
and the cerebellum, and prevents the former from pressing
upon the latter (see Fig. 17).
This groove, therefore, indicates the line of separation
between that part of the cranial cavity which contains the
cerebrum, and that which contains the cerebellum ; and
as the brain exactly fills the cavity of the skull, it is ob-
vious that the relations of these two parts of the cranial
cavity at once informs us of the relations of theu^ contents.
'Now in man, in all the old world, and in all the new
world Simise, with one exception, when the face is directed
forwards, this line of attachment of the tentorium, or im-
pression for the lateral sinus, as it is technically called, is
nearly horizontal, and the cerebral chamber invariably
overlaps or projects behind the cerebellar chamber. In
the Howler Monkey or Mycetes (see Fig. 17), the line
passes obliquely upwards and backwards, and the cerebral
overlap is almost nil ; while in the Lemurs, as in the
lower mammals, the line is much more inclined in the
same direction, and the cerebellar chamber projects con-
siderably beyond the cerebral.
When the gravest errors respecting points so easily
settled as this question respecting the posterior lobes, can
be authoritatively propounded, it is no wonder that mat-
ters of observation, of no very complex character, but still
requiring a certain amount of care, should have fared
worse. Any one who cannot see the posterior lobe in an
pf the cast of a Chimpanzee's skull, which illustrates the paper by Mr. Mar-
shall ' On the Brain of the Chimpanzee ' in the Natural History Review for
July, 1861. The sharper definition of the lower edge of the cast of the
cerebral chamber in the Chimpanzee arises from the circumstance that the
tentorium remained in that skull and not in the Man's. The cast more accu-
rately represents the brain in the Chimpanzee than in Man ; and the great
backward projection of the posterior lobes of the cerebrum of the former, be-
yond the cerebellum, is conspicuous.
TO THE LOWEE ANIMALS. 119
ape's brain is not likely to give a very valuable opinion
respecting the posterior cornu or the hippocampus minor.
If a man cannot see a cburcli, it is preposterous to take
bis opinion about its altar-piece or painted window — so
that I do not feel bound to enter upon any discussion of
these points, but content myself with assming the reader
that the posterior cornu and the hippocampus minor, have
now been seen — ^usually, at least as well developed as in
man, and often better — not only in the Chimpanzee, the
Orang, and the Gibbon, but in all the genera of the old
world baboons and monkeys, and in most of the new world
forms, including the Marmosets.*
In fact, all the abundant and trustworthy evidence
(consisting of the results of careful investigations directed
to the determination of these very questions, by skilled
anatomists) which we now possess, leads to the conviction
that, so far from the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu,
and the hippocampus minor, being structures peculiar to
and characteristic of man, as they have been over and
over again asserted to be, even after the publication of the
clearest demonstration of the reverse, it is precisely these
structures which are the most marked cerebral characters
common to man with the apes. They are among the most
distinctly Simian peculiarities which the human organism
exhibits.
As to the convolutions, the brains of the apes exhibit
every stage of progress, from the almost smooth brain of
the Marmoset, to the Orang and the Chunpanzee, which
fall but little below Man. And it is most remarkable
that, as soon as all the principal sulci appear, the pattern
according to which they are arranged is identical with
that of the corresponding sulci of man. The surface of
* See the note at the end of this essay for a succinct history of the con-
troversy to which allusion is here made.
120 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
the brain of a monkey exhibits a sort of skeleton map of
man's, and in the man-like apes the details become more
and more filled in, until it is only in minor characters,
snch as the greater excavation of the anterior lobes, the
constant presence of fissures usually absent in man, and
the different disposition and proportions of some convolu-
tions, that the Chimpanzee's or the Orang's brain can be
structurally distinguished from Man's.
So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore, it is clear
that Man differs less from the Chimpanzee or the Orang,
than these do even from the Monkeys, and that the differ-
ence between the brains of the Chimpanzee and of Man is
almost insignificant, when compared with that between the
Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur.
It must not be overlooked, however, that there is a
very striking difference in absolute mass and weight be-
tween the lowest human brain and that of the highest ape
— a difference which is all the more remarkable when we
recollect that a full grown Gorilla is probably pretty nearly
twice as heavy as a Bosjes man, or as many an European
woman. It may be doubted whether a healthy human
adult brain ever weighed less than thirty-one or -two
ounces, or that the heaviest Gorilla brain has exceeded
twenty ounces.
This is a very noteworthy circumstance, and doubtless
will one day help to furnish an explanation of the great
gulf which intervenes between the lowest man and the
highest ape in intellectual power ; " but it has little sys-
* I say help to furnish : for I by no means believe that it was any original
difference of cerebral quality, or quantity, which caused that divergence be-
tween the human and the pithecoid stirpes, which has ended in the present
enormous gulf between them. It is no doubt perfectly true, in a certain sense,
that all difference of function is a result of difference of structure ; or, in other
words, of difference in the combination of the primary molecular forces of
living substance ; and, starting from this undeniable axiom, objectors occasion-
TO THE LOWER ANEMALS.
121
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122 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
tematic value, for the simple reason that, as may be conclud-
ed from what has been already said respecting cranial ca-
pacity, the difference in weight of brain between the highest
and the lowest men is far greater, both relatively and abso-
lutely, than that between the lowest man and the highest
ape. The latter, as has been seen, is represented by, say
ally, and with much seeming plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual chasm
between the Ape and Man implies »a corresponding structural chasm in the
organs of the intellectual functions ; so that, it is said, the non-discovery of
such vast diflferences proves, not that they are absent, but that Science is in-
competent to detect them. A very little consideration, however, will, I think,
show the fallacy of this reasoning. Its validity hangs upon the assumption,
that intellectual power depends altogether on the brain — whereas the brain is
only one condition out of many on which intellectual manifestations depend ;
the others being, chiefly, the organs of the senses and the motor apparatuses,
especially those which are concerned in prehension and in the production of
articulate speech.
A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass and his inherit-
ance of strong intellectual instincts, would be capable of few higher intellec-
tual manifestations than an Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he were confined to the
society of dumb associates. And yet there might not be the slightest discerni-
ble difference between his brain and that of a highly intelligent and cultivated
person. The dumbness might be the result of a defective structure .of the
mouth, or of the tongue, or a mere defective innervation of these parts ; or it
might result from congenital deafness, caused by some minute defect of the
internal ear, which only a careful anatomist could discover.
The argument, that because there is an immense difference between a Man's
intelligence and an Ape's, therefore, there must be an equally immense differ-
ence between their brains, appears to me to be about as well based as the
reasoning by which one should endeavour to prove that, because there is a
" great gulf" between a watch that keeps accurate time and another that will
not go at all, there is therefore a great structural hiatus between the two
watches. A hair in the balance-wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a
tooth of the escapement, a something so slight that only the practised eye of
the watchmaker can discover it, may be the source of all the difference.
And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech
is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to
him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspi-
cuous structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasu-
rable and practically infinite divergence of the Human from the Simian Stirps.
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 123
twelve, ounces of cerebral substance absolutely, or by 32 :
20 relatively ; but as the largest recorded human brain
weighed between 65 and 6Q ounces, the former difference
is represented by more than 33 ounces absolutely, or by
65 : 32 relatively. Regarded systematically, the cerebral
differences, of man aud apes, are not of more than generic
value — his Family distinction resting chiefiy on his denti-
tion, his pelvis, and his lower limbs.
Thus, whatever system of organs be studied, the compar-
ison of their modifications in the ape geries leads to one and
the same result — that the structural differences which sep-
arate Man from the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee are not
so great as those which separate the Gorilla from the
lower apes.
But in enunciating this important truth I must guard
myself against a form of misunderstanding, which is very
prevalent. I find, in fact, that those who endeavour to
teach what nature so clearly shows us in this matter, are
liable to have their opinions misrepresented and their
phraseology garbled, until they seem to say that the struc-
tural differences between man and even the highest apes
are small and insignificant. Let me take this opportunity
then of distinctly asserting, on the contrary, that they are
great and significant ; that every bone of a Gorilla bears
marks by which it might be distinguished from the corre-
sponding bone of a Man ; and that, in the present crea-
tion, at any rate, no intermediate link bridges over the
gap between Homo and Troglodytes.
It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny the ex-
istence of this chasm ; but it is at least equally wrong and
absurd to exaggerate its magnitude, and, resting on the
admitted fact of its existence, ,to refuse to inquire whether
it is wide or narrow. Remember, if you will, that there
124 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
is no existing link between Man and the Gorilla, but do
not forget that there is a no less sharp line of demarca-
tion, a no less complete absence of any transitional form,
between the Gorilla and the Orang, or the Orang and the
Gibbon. I saj, not less sharp, tliough it is somewhat nar-
rower. The structural differences between Man and the
Man-like apes certainly justify our regarding him as con-
stituting a family apart from them ; though, inasmuch as
he differs less from them than they do from other families
of the same order, there can be no justification for placing
liim in a distinct order,
And thus the sagacious foresight of the great lawgiver
of systematic zoology, Linnaeus, becomes justified, and a
century of anatomical research brings us back to his con-
clusion, that man is a member of the same order (for which
the Linnsean term Pkemates ought to be retained) as the
Apes and Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven
families, of about equal systematic value : the first, the
Antheopini, contains Man alone ; the second, the Ca-
tarhini, embraces the old world apes ; the third, the
Platyrhini, all new world apes, except the Marmosets ;
the fourth, the AucTOPrrHECiNi, contains the Marmosets ;
the fifth, the Lemurini, the Lemurs — from which Chei-
Tomys should probably be excluded to form a sixth dis-
tinct family, the Cheiromyini ; while the seventh, the
Galeopithecini, contains only the flying Lemur Galeo-
pithecus, — a strange form which almost touches on the
Bats, as the Cheiromys puts on a Kodent clothing, and
the Lemurs simulate Insectivora.
Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with so ex-
traordinary a series of gradations as this — leading us in-
sensibly from the crown and summit of the animal crea-
tion down to creatures, from which there is but a step, as
it seems, to the lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 125
the placental Mammalia. It is as if nature lierself had
foreseen the arrogance of man, and with Roman severity
had provided that his intellect, by its very triumphs,
should call into prominence the slaves, admonishing the
conqueror that he is but dust.
These are the chief facts, this the immediate conclu-
sion from them to which I adverted in the commencement
of this Essay. The facts, I believe, cannot be disputed ;
and if so, the conclusion appears to me to be inevitable.
But if Man be separated by no greater structural bar-
rier from the brutes than they are from one another — then
it seems to follow that if any process of physical causation
can be discovered by which the genera and families of
ordinary animals have been produced, that process of
causation is amply sufficient to account for the origin of
Man. In other words, if it could be shown that the Mar-
mosets, for example, have arisen by gradual modification
of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that both Marmosets and
Platyrhini are modified ramifications of a primitive stock
— then, there would be no rational ground for doubting
that man might have originated, in the one case, by the
gradual modification of a man-like ape ; or, in the other
case, as a ramification of the same primitive stock as those
apes.
At the present moment, but one such process of phys-
ical causation has any evidence in its favour ; or, in other
words, there is but one hypothesis regarding the origin of
species of animals in general which has any scientific ex-
istence — that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For Lamarck,
sagacious as many of his views were, mingled them with
so much that was crude and even absurd, as to neutralize
the benefit which his originality might have eflfected, had
he been a more sober and cautious thinker ; and though
126 THE KELATIONS OF MAN
I have heard of tlie annonncemeiit of a formula touching
" the ordained continuous becoming of organic forms," it
is obvious that it is the first duty of a hypothesis to be
intelligible, and that a qua-qua-versal proposition of this
kind, which may be read backwards, or forwards, or side-
ways, with exactly the same amount of signification, does
not really exist, though it may seem to do so.
At the present moment, therefore, the question of the
relation of man to the lower animals resolves itself, in the
end, into the larger question of the tenabihty or untena-
bility of Mr. Darwin's views. But here we enter upon
difficult ground, and it behoves us to define our exact po-
sition with the greatest care.
It cannot be doubted, I thinl?:, that Mr. Darwin has
satisfactorily proved that what he terms selection, or select-
ive modification, must occur, and does occur, in nature ;
and he has also proved to superfluity that such selection is
competent to produce forms as distinct, structurally, as
some genera even are. If the animated world presented
us with none but structural differences, I should have no
hesitation in saying that Mr. Darwin has demonstrated
the existence of a true physical cause, amply competent to
account for the origin of living species, and of man among
the rest.
But, in addition to their structural distinctions, the
species of animals and plants, or at least a great number
of them, exhibit physiological characters — what are known
as distinct species, structurally, being for the most part
either altogether incompetent to breed one with another ;
or if they breed, the resulting mule, or hybrid, is unable
to perpetuate its race with another hybrid of the same kind.
A true physical cause is, however, admitted to be such
only on one condition — that it shall account for all the
phenomena which come within the range of its operation.
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 127
•
If it is inconsistent with any one phenomenon, it must be
rejected ; if it fails to explain any one phenomenon, it is
so far weak, so far to be suspected ; though it may have a
perfect right to claim provisional acceptance.
ISTow, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as I am
aware, inconsistent with any known biological fact ; on
the contrary, if admitted, the facts of Development, of
Comparative Anatomy, of Geographical Distribution, and
of Palgeontology, become connected together, and exhibit
a meaning such as they never possessed before ; and I, for
one, am fully convinced that if not precisely true, that hy-
pothesis is as near an approximation to the truth as, for
example, the Copernican hypothesis was to the true theory
of the planetary motions.
But, for all this, our acceptance of the Darwinian hy-
pothesis must be provisional so long as one link in the
chain of evidence is wanting ; and so long as all the ani-
mals and plants certainly produced by selective breeding
from a common stock are fertile, and their progeny are
fertile with one another, that link will be wanting. For,
so long, selective breeding will not be proved to be com-
petent to do all that is required of it to produce natural
species.
I have put this conclusion as strongly as possible be-
fore #ie reader, because the last position in which I wish
to find myself is that of an advocate for Mr. Darwin's, or
any other views — if by an advocate is meant one whose
business it is to smooth over real difiiculties, and to per-
suade where he cannot convince.
In justice to Mr. Darwin, however, it must be admitted
that the conditions of fertility and sterility are very ill
understood, and that every day's advance in knowledge
leads us to regard the hiatus in his evidence as of less and
less importance, when set against the multitude of facts
128 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
which harmonize with, or receive an explanation from, his
doctrines.
1 adopt Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, subject to
the production of proof that physiological species may be
produced by selective breeding ; just as a physical philoso-
pher may accept the undulatory theory of light, subject
to the proof of the existence of the hypothetical ether ; or
as the chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the
proof of the existence of atoms ; and for exactly the same
reasons, namely, that it has an immense amount of prima
facie probability; that it is the only means at present
within reach of reducing the chaos of observed facts to
order ; and lastly, that it is the most powerful instrument
of investigation which has been presented to naturalists
since the invention of the natural system of classification
and the commencement of the systematic study of embry-
ology.
But even leaving Mr. Darwin's views aside, the whole
analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and
crushing an argument against the intervention of any but
what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all
the phenomena of the universe ; that, in view of the inti-
mate relations between Man and the rest of the living
world ; and between the forces exerted by the latter and
all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting tbiit all
are co-ordinated terms of E'ature's great progression, from
the formless to the formed — from the inorganic to the or-
ganic — from blind force to conscious intellect and will.
Science has fulfilled her function when she has ascer-
tained and enunciated truth ; and were these pages ad-
dressed to men of science only, I should now close this
essay, knowing that my colleagues have learned to respect
nothing but evidence, and to believe that their highest
TO THE LOWEK AlHMALS. 129
duty lies in submitting to it, however it may jar against
their inclinations.
But desiring, as I do, to reacli the wider circle of the
intelligent public, it would be unworthy cowardice were I
to ignore the repugnance with which the majority of my
readers are likely to meet the conclusions to which the
most careful and conscientious study I have been able to
give to this matter, has led me.
On all sides I shall hear tiie cry — " We are men and
women, and not a mere better sort of apes, a little longer
in the leg, more compact in the foot, and bigger in brain
than your brutal Chimpanzees and Gorillas. The power
of knowledge — ^the conscience of good and evil — the pitiful
tenderness of human affections, raise us out of all real fel-
lowship with the brutes, however closely they may seem
to aj)proximate us."
To this I can only reply that the exclamation would
be most just and would have my own entire sympathy, if
it were only relevant. But it is not I who seek to base
Man's dignity upon his great toe, or insinuate that we are
lost if an Ape has a hippocampus minor. On the con-
trary, I have done my best to sweep away this vanity. I
have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line
of demarcation, wider than that between the animals
which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn
between the animal world and ourselves ; and I may add
the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a
physical distinction is equally futile, and that even the
highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germi-
nate in lower forms of life.* At the same time no one is
* It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor Owen's opinions in
entire accordance with my own, that I cannot forbear from quoting a paragraph
which appeared in his Essay " On the Characters, &c. of the Class Mammalia,"
in the ' Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London ' for
6*
130 THE RELATIONS OF MAN
more strongly convinced than I am of the vastness of the
gulf between civiKzed man and the brutes ; or is more
certain that whether from them or not, he is assuredly
not of them. !N'o one is less disposed to think lightly of
the present dignity, or despairingly of the future hopes, of
the only consciously intelligent denizen of this world.
"We are indeed told by those who assume authority in
these matters, that the two sets of opinions are incompati-
ble, and that the belief in the unity of origin of man and
brutes involves the brutalization and degradation of the
former. But is this really so % Could not a sensible child
confute, by obvious arguments, the shallow rhetoricians
who would force this conclusion upon us % Is it, indeed,
true, that the Poet, or the Philosopher, or the Artist
whose genius is the glory of his age, is degraded from his
high estate by the undoubted historical probability, not to
say certainty, that he is the direct descendant of some
naked and bestial savage, whose intelligence was just suffi-
cient to make him a little more cunning than the Fox,
and by so much more dangerous than the Tiger ? Or is
he bound to howl and grovel on all fours because of the
wholly unquestionable fact, that he was once an q^^^ which
1857, but is unaccountably omitted in the " Reade Lecture " delivered before
the University of Cambridge two years later, which is otherwise nearly a re-
print of the paper in question. Prof. Owen writes :
" Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the distinction between the
psychical phenomena of a Chimpanzee and of a Boschisman or of an Aztec,
with arrested brain growth, as being of a nature so essential as to preclude a
comparison between them, or as being other than a difference of degree, I
cannot shut my eyes to the significance of that all-pervading similitude of
structure — every tooth, every bone, strictly homologous — which makes the
determination of the difference between Homo and Fithecus the anatomist's
difficulty."
Surely it is a little singular, that the ' anatomist,' who finds it ' difficult '
to ' determine the difference ' between Hoino and Pithecus^ should yet range
them on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes !
TO THE LOWER ANIMALS. 131
no ordinary power of discrimination could distinguish from
that of a Dog ? Or is the philanthropist or the saint to
give np his endeavours to lead a noble life, because the
simplest study of man's nature reveals, at its foundations,
all the selfish passions and fierce appetites of the merest
quadruped ? Is mother-love vile because a hen shows it,
or fidelity base because dogs possess it ?
The common sense of the mass of mankind will answer
these questions without a moment's hesitation. Healthy
humanity, finding itself hard pressed to escape from real
sin and degradation, will leave the brooding over specula-
tive pollution to the cynics and the righteous ' overmuch '
who, disagreeing in everything else, unite in blind insen-
sibility to the nobleness of the visible world, and in ina-
bility to appreciate the grandeur of the place Man occu-
pies therein.
iN^ay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from the
blinding influences of traditional prejudice, will find in the
lowly stock whence man has sprung, the best evidence of
the splendour of his capacities ; and will discern in his
long progress through the Past, a reasonable ground of
faith in his attainment of a nobler Future.
They will remember that in comparing civilized man
with the animal world, one is as the Alpine traveller, who
sees the mountains soaring into the sky and can hardly
discern where the deep shadowed crags and roseate peaks
end, and where the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the
awe-struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he refuses
to believe the geologist, who tells him that these glorious
masses are, after all, the hardened mud of primeval seas,
or the cooled slag of subterranean furnaces — of one sub-
stance with the dullest clay, but raised by inward forces
to that place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory.
But the geologist is right ; and due reflection on his
132 THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS.
teacMngs, instead of diminisliing our reverence and oiir
wonder, adds all the force of intellectual sublimity, to the
mere aesthetic intuition of the uninstructed beholder.
And after passion and prejudice have died away, the
same result will attend the teachings of the naturalist re-
specting that great Alps and Andes of the living world —
Man. Our reverence for the nobilitv of manhood will not
be lessened by the knowledge, that Man is, in substance
and in structure, one with the brutes ; for, he alone pos-
sesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible and ra-
tional speech, whereby, in the secular period of his exist-
ence, he has slowly accumnlated and organized the expe-
rience which is almost wholly lost with the cessation of
every individual life in other animals ; so that now he
stands raised npon it as on a mountain top, far above the
level of his humble fellows, and transfigured from his
grosser nature by reflecting, here and there, a ray from
the infinite source of truth.
CEKEBEAL STKUCTUEE OF MAN AND THE APES. 133
A SUCCINCT HISTORY OF THE CONTEOVERSY RESPECTING THE
CEREBRAL STRUCTURE OF MAN AND THE APES.
Up to the year 1857 all anatomists of authority, who had occu-
pied themselves with the cerebral structure of the Apes — Cuvier,
Tiedemann, Sandifort, Vrolik, Isidore G-. St. Hilaire, Schroeder yan
der Kolk, Gratiolet — were agreed that the brain of the Ape possesses
a POSTERIOR LOBE.
Tiedemann, in 1825, figured and acknowledged in the text of
his ' Icones,' the existence of the posterior cornu of the lateral
ventricle in the Apes, not only under the title of ' Scrobiculus parvus
loco cornu posterioris' — a fact which has been paraded — but as
*comu posterius' (Icones, p. 54), a circumstance which has been, as
sedulously, kept in the back ground.
Cuvier (Lecons, T. iii. p. 103) says, " the anterior or lateral ven-
tricles possess a digital cavity [posterior cornu] only in Man and the
Apes Its presence dei}ends on that of the poste-
rior lobes."
Schroeder van der Kolk and Yrolik, and Gratiolet, had also fig-
ured and described the posterior cornu in various Apes. As to the
Hippocampus minor, Tiedemann had erroneously asserted its absence
in the Apes ; but Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik had pointed
out the existence of what they considered a rudimentary one in the
Chimpanzee, and Gratiolet had expressly affirmed its existence in
these animals. Such was the state of our information on these sub-
jects in the year 1856.
In the year 1857, however, Professor Owen, either in ignorance of
these well-known facts or else unjustifiably suppressing them, sub-
mitted to the Linnsean Society a paper " On the Characters, Princi-
ples of Division, and Primary^ GroujDs of the Class Mammalia," which
was printed in the Society's Journal, and contains the following
passage : — " In Man, the brain presents an ascensive step in develop-
ment, higher and more strongly marked than that by which the pre-
134 HISTORY OF THE COJSTTEOVERSY RESPECTING THE
ceding sub-class was distinguished from tlie one below it. Not only-
do the cerebral bemispheres overlap the olfactory lobes and cerebel-
lum, but they extend in advance of the one and further back than
the other. The posterior development is so marked, that anatomists
have assigned to that part the character of a third lobe ; it is peculiar
to the genus SbmOj and equally peculiar is the posterior horn of the late-
ral ventricle and tJie ' hippocampus minor ' tchich characterise the hind
lode of each hemisphere^ — Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnxmn
Society^ Yol. ii. p. 19.
As the essay in which this passage stands had no less ambitious
an aim than the remodelling of the classification of the Mammalia,
its author might be supposed to have written under a sense of pecu-
liar responsibility, and to have tested, with especial care, the state-
ments he ventured to promulgate. And even if this be expecting
too much, hastiness, or want of opportunity for due deliberation, can-
not now be pleaded in extenuation of any shortcomings ; for the
propositions cited were repeated two years afterwards in the Reade
Lecture, delivered before so grave a body as the University of Cam-
bridge, in 1859.
"When the assertions, which I have italicised in the above extract,
first came under my notice, I was not a little astonished at so flat a
contradiction of the doctrines current among well-informed anato-
mists ; but, not unnaturally imagining that the deliberate state-
ments of a responsible person must have some foundation in fact, I
deemed it my duty to investigate the subject anew before the time
at which it would be my business to lecture thereupon came round.
The result of my inquiries was to prove that Mr. Owen's three asser-
tions, that " the third lobe, the posterior horn of the lateral ventri-
cle, and the hippocampus minor," are " peculiar to the genus Homo^''
are contrary to the plainest facts. I communicated tliis conclusion
to the students of my class ; and then, having no desire to embark
in a controversy which could not redound to the honour of British
science, whatever its issue, I turned to more congenial occupations.
The time speedily arrived, however, when a persistence in this
reticence would have involved me in an unworthy paltering with
truth.
At the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in 1860,
Professor Owen repeated these assertions in my presence, and, of
course, I immediately gave them a direct and unqualified contradic-
tion, pledging myself to justify that unusual procedure elsewhere.
CEREBEAL STRUCTTJKE OF MAN AND THE APES. 135
I redeemed that pledge by publishing, in the January number of the
Natural History Review for 1861, an article wherein the truth of the
three following propositions was fully demonstrated (?. c. p. 71) : —
" 1. That the third lobe is neither peculiar to, nor characteristic
of, man, seeing that it exists in all the higher quadrumana."
" 3. That the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle is neither
peculiar to, nor characteristic of, man, inasmuch as it also exists in
the higher quadrumana.
" 3. That the hippocampus minm' is neither peculiar to, nor char-
acteristic of, man, as it is found in certain of the higher quadru-
mana."
Furthermore, this paper contains the following paragraph (p. 76) :
" And lastly, Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik (op. cit. p. 271),
though they particularly note that ' the lateral ventricle is distin-
guished from that of Man by the very defective proportions of the
posterior cornu, wherein only a stripe is visible as an indication of
the hippocampus minor ; ' yet the Figure 4, in their second Plate,
shows that this posterior cornu is a perfectly distinct and unmistake-
able structure, quite as large as it often is in Man. It is the more
remarkable that Professor Owen should have overlooked the explicit
statement and figure of these authors, as it is quite obvious, on com-
parison of the figures, that his woodcut of the brain of a Chimpanzee
(1. c. p. 19) is a reduced copy of the second figure of Messrs. Schroe-
der van der Kolk and Yrolik's first Plate.
" As M. Gratiolet (1. c. p. 18), however, is careful to remark, ' un-
fortunately the brain which they have taken as a model was greatly
altered (profondement affaisse), whence the general form of the brain
is given in these plates in a manner which is altogether incorrect.'
Indeed, it is jDerfectly obvious, from a comparison of a section of the
skull of the Chimpanzee with these figures, that such is the case ;
and it is greatly to be regretted that so inadequate a figure should
have been taken as a typical representation of the Chimpanzee's
brain."
From this time forth, the untenability of his position might have
been as apparent to Professor Owen as it was to every one else ; but,
so far from retracting the grave errors into which he had fallen,
Professor Owen has persisted in and reiterated them ; first, in a lec-
ture delivered before the Royal Institution on the 19th of March,
1861, which is admitted to have been accurately reproduced in the
* Athenaeum' for the 23rd of the same month, in a letter addressed
136 HISTORY OF THE CONTEOVEESY EESPECTING THE
by Professor Owen to that journal on the SOtli of March. The
' Athenaeum ' report was accompanied by a diagram purporting to
represent a Gorilla's brain, but in reality so extraordinary a misrep-
resentation, that Professor Owen substantially, though not explicitly,
withdraws it in the letter in question. In amending this error,
however. Professor Owen fell into another of much graver import, as
his communication concludes with the following paragraph : " For
the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the cerebellum in
the highest Apes, reference should be made to the figure of the un-
dissected brain of the Chimpanzee in my ' Reade's Lecture on the
Classification, &c. of the Mammalia,' p. 25, fig. 7, 8vo. 1859."
It would not be credible, if it were not unfortunately true, that
this figure, to which the trusting public is referred, without a word
of qualification, " for the true proportion in which the cerebrum
covers the cerebellum in the highest Apes," is exactly that unac-
knowledged copy of Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik's figure
whose utter inaccuracy had been pointed out years before by Gratio-
let, and had been brought to Professor Owen's knowledge by myself
in the passage of my article in the ' Natural History Review ' above
quoted.
I drew public attention to this circumstance again in my reply to
Professor Owen, published in the ' Athenaeum ' for April 13th, 1861 ;
but the exploded figure was reproduced once more by Professor
Owen, without the slightest allusion to its inaccuracy, in the ' An-
nals of Natural History ' for June, 1861 !
This proved too much for the patience of the original authors of
the figure, Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, who, in a
note addressed to the Academy of Amsterdam, of which they were
members, declared themselves to be, though decided opponents of
all forms of the doctrine of progressive development, above all
things, lovers of truth : and that, therefore, at whatever risk of seem-
ing to lend support to views which they disliked, they felt it their
duty to take the first opportunity of publicly repudiating Professor
Owen's misuse of their authority.
In this note they frankly admitted the justice of the criticisms
of M. Gratiolet, quoted above, and they illustrated, by new and
careful figures, the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippo-
campus minor of the Orang. Furthermore, having demonstrated the
parts, at one of the sittings of the Academy, they add, " la presence
des parties contestees y a 6te imiversellement reconnue par les anato-
CEKEBEAL STRUCTURE OF MAN AND THE APES. 137
mistes presents a, la seance. La seul doute qui soit reste se rapporte
au pes Hippocampi minor. . . . . A I'etat frais Tindice du
petit pied d'Hippocampe etait plus prononce que maintenant."
Professor Owen repeated his erroneous assertions at the meeting
of the British Association in 1861, and again, without any obvious
necessity, and without adducing a single new fact or new argument,
or being able in any way to meet the crushing evidence from original
dissections of numerous Apes' brains, which had in the meanwhile
been brought forward by Prof. Rolleston,* F.R.S., Mr. Marshall,t
F.R.S., Mr. Flower,:]: Mr. Turner § and myself,|| revived the subject
at the Cambridge meeting of the same body in 1862. Not content
with the tolerably vigorous repudiation which these unprecedented
proceedings met with in Section D, Professor Owen sanctioned the
publication of a version of his own statements, accompanied by a
strange misrepresentation of mine (as may be seen by comparison of
the ' Times' Report of the discussion), in the ' Medical Times' for
October 11th, 1863. I subjoin the conclusion of my reply in the
same journal for October 25th.
" If this were a question of opinion, or a question of intei*preta-
tion of- parts or of terms, — were it even a question of observation in
which the testimony of my own senses alone was pitted against
that of another person, I should adopt a very different tone in dis-
cussing this matter. I should, in all humility, admit the likelihood
of having myself erred in judgment, failed in knowledge, or been
blinded by prejudice.
" But no one pretends now that the controversy is one of terms
or of opinions. Novel and devoid of authority as some of Professor
Owen's proposed definitions may have been, they might be accepted
without changing the great features of the case. Hence, though
special investigations into these matters have been undertaken
during the last two years by Dr. Allen Thomson, by Dr. Rolleston,
* On the Affinities of the Brain of the Orang. Nat. Hist. Review, April,
1861.
f On the Brain of a young Chimpanzee. Ibid. July, 1861.
:}: On the Posterior lobes of the Cerebrum of the Quadrumana. Philoso-
phical Transactions, 1862.
§ On the anatomical Relations of the Surfaces of the Tentorium to the
Cerebrum and Cerebellum in Man and the lower Mammals. Proceedings of
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, March, 1862.
I On the Brain of Ateles. Proceedings of Zoological Society, 1861.
138 CEREBKAL STEUCTUEE OF MAN AND THE APES.
by Mr. Marshall, and by Mr. Flower, all, as you are aware, anato-
mists of repute in this country, and by Professors Schroeder van der
Kolk, and Vrolik (whom Professor Owen incautiously tried to press"
into his own service) on the Continent, all these able and conscien-
tious observers have with one accord testified to the accuracy of my
statements, and to the utter baselessness of the assertions of Professor
Owen. Even the venerable Rudolph Wagner, whom no man will
accuse of progressional proclivities, has raised his voice on the same
side ; while not a single anatomist, great or small, has supported
Professor Owen.
" Now, I do not mean to suggest that scientific differences should
be settled by universal suffrage, but I do conceive that solid proofs
must be met by something more than empty and unsupported asser-
tions. Yet during the two years through which this preposterous
controversy has dragged its weary length. Professor Owen has not
ventured to bring forward a single preparation in support of his
often-repeated assertions.
" The case stands thus, therefore : — Not only are the statements
made by me in consonance with the doctrines of the best older au-
thorities, and with those of all recent investigators, but I am quite
ready to demonstrate them on the first monkey that comes to hand ;
while Professor Owen's assertions are not only in diametrical oppo-
sition to both old and new authorities, but he has not produced,
and, I will add, cannot produce, a single preparation which justifies ^
them."
I now leave this subject, for the present. — For the credit of my
calling I should be glad to be, hereafter, for ever silent upon it.
But, unfortunately, this is a matter upon which, after all that has
occurred, no mistake or confusion of terms is possible — and in
affirming that the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippo-
campus minor exist in certain Apes, I am stating either that which
is true, or that which I must know to be false. The question has
thus become one of personal veracity. For myself, I will accept no
other issue than this, grave as it is, to the present controversy.
in.
OE" SOME FOSSIL EEMAmS OF MAJST.
I HAVE endeavoured to show in the preceding Essay,
that the Anthkopini, or Man Family, form a very well
defined group of the Primates, between which and the
immediately following Family, the Catauhint, there is, in
the existing world, the same entire absence of any transi-
tional form or connecting link, as between the Catakhini
and Platykhini.
It is a commonly received doctrine, however, that the
structural intervals between the various existing modifica-
tions of organic beings may be diminished, or even obliter-
ated, if we take into account the long and varied succes-
sion of animals and plants which have preceded those now
living and which are knowA to us only by their fossilized
remains. How far this doctrine is well based, how far, on
the other hand, as our knowledge at present stands, it is
an overstatement of the real facts of the case, and an ex-
aggeration of the conclusions fairly deducible from them,
are points of grave importance, but into the discussion of
which I do not, at present, propose to enter. It is enough
that such a view of the relations of extinct to living
beings has been propounded, to lead us to inquire, with
anxiety, how far the recent discoveries of human remains
in a fossil state bear out, or oppose, that view.
140
FOSSIL EEMAINS OF MAN.
I shall confine myself, in discussing this question, to
those fragmentary Human skulls from the caves of En-
gis in the valley of the Meuse, in Belgium, and of the
Neanderthal near Diisseldorf, the geological relations of
which have been examined with so much care by Sir
Charles Lyell ; upon whose high authority I shall take it
for granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a contempo-
rary of the Mammoth {Ele^has jprimigenius) and of the
woolly Hhinoceros {Rhinocerus tichorhinus)^ with the
bones of which it was found associated ; and that the
^Neanderthal skull is of great, though uncertain, antiquity.
Whatever be the geological age of the latter skull, I con-
Fi(5. 23.— The skull from the cave of Engis— viewed from the right side. One
half the size of nature, a glabella, h occipital protuberance, (a to
h glabello-occipital line), c auditory foramen.
FOSSIL EEMAmS OF MAN. 14:1
ceive it is quite safe (on tlie ordinary principles of paleon-
telogical reasoning) to assnme that the former takes iis to,
at least, the further side of the vague biological limit
which separates the present geological epoch from that
which immediately preceded it. And there can be no
doubt that the physical geography of Europe has changed
wonderfully since the bones of Men and Mammoths, 'Hy-
senas and Rhinoceroses were washed pell-mell into the
cave of Engis.
The skull from the cave of Engis was originally dis-
covered by Professor Schmerling, and was described by
him, together with other human remains disinterred at
the same time, in his valuable work, " Recherches sur les
ossemens fossiles decouverts dans les cavernes de la Prov-
ince de Liege," published in 1833, (p. 59, et seq.) from
which the following paragraphs are extracted, the precise
expressions of the author being, as far as possible, pre-
served.
" In the first place, I must remark that these human
remains, which are in my possession, are characterized,
like the thousands of bones which I have lately been dis-
interring, by the extent of the decomposition which they
have undergone, which is precisely the same as that of
the extinct species : all, with a few exceptions, are broken ;
some few are rounded, as is frequently found to be the
case in fossil remains of other species. The fractures are
vertical or oblique ; none of them are eroded ; their colour
does not differ from that of other fossil bones, and varies
from whitish yellow to blackish. All are lighter than
recent bones, with the exception of those which have a
calcareous incrustation, and the cavities of which are filled
with such matter.
The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate
142 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
I, figs. 1, 2, is that of an old person. The sutures are be-
ginning to be effaced : all the facial bones are wanting,
and of the temporal bones only a fragment of that of the
right side is preserved.
The face and the base of the cranium had been de-
tached before the skull was deposited in the cave, for we
were unable to find those parts, though the whole cavern
was regularly searched. The cranium was met with at a
depth of a metre and a half [five feet nearly] hidden under
an osseous breccia, composed of the remains of small ani-
mals, and containing one rhinoceros tusk, with several
teeth of horses and of ruminants. This breccia, which
has been spoken of above, (p. 31) was a metre [3J feet
about] wide, and rose to the height of a metre and a half
above the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which it ad-
hered strongly.
The earth which contained this human skull exhibited
no trace of disturbance : teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyae-
na, and bear, surrounded it on all sides.
The famous Blumenbach* has directed attention to
the differences presented by the form and the dimensions
of human crauia of different races. This important work
would have assisted us greatly, if the face, a part essential
for the determination of race, with more or less accuracy,
had not been wanting in our fossil cranium.
We are convinced that even if the skull had been com-
plete, it would not have been possible to pronounce, with
certainty, upon a single specimen ; for individual varia-
tions are so' numerous in the crania of one and ther same
race, that one cannot, without laying oneself open to large
chances of error, draw any inference from a single frag-
* Decas Collectionis suee craniorum diversarum gentium illustrata. Got-
tingse, 1*790-1820.
FOSSIL KEMAmS OF MAN. 143
ment of a cranium to the general form of the head to
which it belonged.
Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting
the form of this fossil skull, we may observe that, from
the first, the elongated and narrow form of the forehead
attracted our attention.
In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrow-
ness, and the form of the orbit, approximate it more nearly
to the cranium of an Ethiopian than to that of an Euro-
pean : the elongated form and the produced occiput are
also characters which we believe to be observable in our
fossil cranium ; but to remove all doubt upon that subject
I have caused the contours of the cranium of an European
and of an Ethiopian to be drawn and the foreheads repre-
sented. Plate II, figs. 1 & 2, and, in the same plate, figs.
3 & 4, will render the differences easily distinguishable ;
and a single glance at the figures, will be more instructive
than a long and wearisome description.
At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the origin
of the man from whence this fossil skull proceeded, we may
express an opinion without exposing ourselves to a fruit-
less controversy. Each may adopt the hypothesis which
seems to him most probable ; for my own part, I hold it
to be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged to a
person of limited intellectual faculties, and we conclude
thence that it belonged to a man of a low degree of civil-
ization : a deduction which is borne out by contrasting the
capacity of the frontal with tfiat of the occipital region.
Another cranium of a young individual was* discovered
in the floor of the cavern beside the tooth of an elephant ;
the skull was entire when found, but the moment it Was
lifted it fell into pieces, which I have not, as yet, been
able to put together again. But I have represented the
bones of the upper jaw, Plate I, £.g. 5. The state of the
14:4: FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
alveoli and the teeth, shows that the molars had not yet
pierced the gum. Detached milk molars and some frag-
ments of a human skull, proceed from this same place.
The figure 3, represents a human superior incisor tooth,
the size of which is truly remarkable.*
Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone,
the molar teeth of which are worn down to the roots.
I possess two vertebrae, a first and last dorsal.
A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III, &g. 1) ; al-
though it belonged to a young individual, this bone shows
that he must have been of great stature. f
Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not
indicate that the height of the man, to whom they be-
longed, exceeded five feet and a half.
As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which
are in my possession, consist merely of a fragment of an
ulna and of a radius (Plate III, ■Q.g. 5 and 6).
Figure 2, Plate lY, represents a metacarpal bone,
contained in the breccia, of which we have spoken ; it
was found in the lower part above the cranium : add to ^
this some metacarpal bones, found at very different dis-
tances, half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the
hand, and one of the foot.
This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human
bones collected in the cavern of Engis, which has pre-
served for us the remains of three individuals, surrounded
by those of the Elephant, of the PhinoceroSj-and of Gar-
ni vora of species unknown in the present creation."
* In a subsequent passage, Schmerling remarks upon the occurrence of an
incisor tooth ' of enormous size ' from the caverns of Engihoul. The tooth
figured is somewhat long, but its dimensions do not appear to me to be other-
wise remarkable.
f The figure of this clavicle measures 5 inches from end to end in a
straight line — so that the bone is rather a small than a large one.
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 145
From the cave of Engilioiil, opposite that Ox Engis, on
the right bank of the Meuse, Schmerling obtained the re-
mains of three other individuals of Man, among which
were only two fragments of parietal bones, but many
bones of the extremities. In one case, a broken fragment
of an ulna was soldered to a like fragment of a radius by
stalagmite, a condition frequently observed among the
bones of the Cave Bear ( Ursus sjkIcbus)^ found in the Bel-
gian caverns.
It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor Schmer-
ling found, incrusted with stalagmite and joined to a
stone, the pointed bone implement, which he has figured
in fig. 7 of his Plate XXXYI, and worked flints were
found by him in all those Belgian caves, which contained
an abundance of fossil bones.
A short letter from M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire, published
in the Comptes Pendus of the Academy of Sciences of
Paris, for July 2nd, 1838, speaks of a visit (and apparently
a very hasty one) paid to the collection of Professor
' Schermidt ' (which is presumably a misprint for Schmer-
ling) at Liege. The writer briefly criticises the drawings
which illustrate Schmerling's work, and affirms that the
" human cranium is a little longer than it is represented "
in Schmerling's figure. The only other remark worth
quoting is this : — '' The aspect of the human bones differs
little from that of the cave bones, with which we are
familiar, and of which there is a considerable collection in
the same place. With respect to their special forms, com-
pared with those of the varieties of recent human crania,
few certain conclusions can be put forward ; for much
greater differences exist between the different specimens
of well-characterized varieties, than between the fossil
cranium of Liege and that of one of those varieties se-
lected as a term of comparison."
7
146 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
Geoffroy St. Hilaire's remarks are, it will be observed,
little but an echo of tlie pliilosopliic doubts of the describer
and discoverer of the remains. As to the critique upon
Schmerling's figui'es, I find that the side view given by
the latter is really about j\ths of an inch shorter than the
original, and that the front view is diminished to about
the same extent. Otherwise the representation is not, in
any way, inaccurate, but corresponds very well with the
cast which is in my possession.
A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling seems
to have missed, has since been fitted on to the rest of the.
cranium by an accomplished anatomist, Dr. Spring of
Liege, under whose direction an excellent plaster cast was
made for Sir Charles Lyell. It is upon and from a dupli-
cate of that cast that my own observations and the accom-
panying figures, the outlines of which are copied from the
very accurate Camera lucida drawings, by my friend Mr.
Busk, reduced to one-half of the natural size, are made.
As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the
skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirely ab-
sent ; but the roof of the cranium, consisting of the front-
al, parietal, and the greater part of the occipital bones,
as far as the middle of the occipital foramen, is entire or
nearly so. The left temporal bone is wanting. Of the
right temporal, the parts in the immediate neighbourhood
of the auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a con-
siderable portion of the squamous element of the temporal
are well preserved (Fig 23).
The lines of fracture which remain between the coad-
justed pieces of the skull, and are faithfully displayed in
Schmerling's figure, are readily traceable in the cast.
The sutures are also discernible, but the complex disposi-
tion of their serrations, shown in the figure, is not obvious
in the cast. Though the ridges which give attachment to
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
147
A
Fig. 24. — The Engis skull viewed from above (A) and in front (B).
148 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
muscles are not excessively prominent, tliey are well
marked, and taken together with the apparently well de-
\^eloped frontal sinuses, and the condition of the sutures,
leave no doubt on my mind that the skull is that of an
adult, if not middle-aged man.
The extreme length of the skull is 7.7 inches. Its ex-
treme breadth, which corresponds very nearly with the
interval between the parietal protuberances, is not more
than 5.4 inches. The proportion of the length to the
breadth is therefore very nearly as 100 to 70. If a line
be drawn from the point at which the brow curves in
towards the root of the nose, and which is called the ' gla-
bella' («),(%. 23), to the occipital protuberance (5), and
the distance to the highest point of the arch of the skull
be measured perpendicularly from this line, it will be
found to be 4.Y5 inches. Yiewed from above, fig. 24 A,
the forehead presents an evenly rounded curve, and passes
into the contour of the sides and back of the skull, which
describes a tolerably regular elliptical curve.
The front view (fig. 24 B) shows that the. roof of the
skull was very regularly and elegantly arched in the
transverse direction, and that the transverse diameter was
a little less below the parietal protuberances, than above
them. The forehead cannot be called narrow in relation
to the rest of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating
forehead ; on the contrary, the antero-posterior contour of
the skull is well arched, so that the distance along that
contour, from the nasal depression to the occipital protu-
berance, measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc
of the skull, measured from one auditory foramen to the
other, across the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 13
inches. Tlie sagittal suture itself is 5.5 inches long.
The supraciliary prominences or brow-ridges (on each
side of a, fig. 23) are well, but not excessively, developed,
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 14:9
and are se2:)arated by a median depression. Tlieir princi-
pal elevation is disposed so obliquely that I judge them
to be due to large frontal sinuses.
If a line joining the glabella and the occipital protu-
berance (rt, Z>, 'Q.g. 23) be made horizontal, no part of the
occipital region projects more than y^tb of an inch behind
the posterior extremity of that line, and the upper edge
of the auditory foramen (c) is almost in contact with a line
drawn parallel with this upon the outer surface of the
skull.
A transverse line drawn from one auditory foramen to
the other traverses, as usual, the forepart of the occipital
foramen. The capacity of the interior of this fragmentary
skull has not been ascertained.
The history of the Human remains from the cavern in
the Neanderthal may best be given in the words of their
original describer, Dr. Schaaffhausen,* as translated by
Mr. Busk.
" In the early part of the year 185Y, a human skeleton
was discovered in a limestone cave in the IS^eanderthal,
near Hochdal, between Diisseldorf and Elberfeld. Of
this, however, I was unable to procure more than a plaster
cast of the cranium, taken at Elberfeld, from which I
drew up an account of its remarkable conformation,
which was, in the first instance, read on the 4th of Febru-
ary, 1857, at 'the meeting of the Lower Rhine Medical
and E'atural History Society, at Bonn.f Subsequently
* On the Crania of the most Ancient Races of Man. By Professor
D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn, (From Miiller's Archiv., 1858, pp. 453.) With
Remarks, and original Figures, taken from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium.
By George Busk, F.R.S., &c. Natural History Review, April, 1861.
f Yerhandl. d. Naturhist. Vereins der preuss. Rheinlande und Westpha-
lens.j xiv. Bonn, IBS'?.
150 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
Dr. Fulilrott, to whom science is indebted for the preser-
vation of these bones, which were not at first regarded as
human, and into whose possession they afterwards came,
brought the cranium from Elberfeld to Bonn, and en-
trusted it to me for a more accurate anatomical examina-
tion. At the General Meeting of the J^atural History
Society of Prussian Ehin eland and Westphalia, at Bonn,
on the 2nd of June, 1857, "^ Dr. Fulilrott himself gave a
full account of the locality and of the circumstances under
which the discovery was made. He was of opinion that
the bones might be regarded as fossil ; and in coming to
this conclusion, he laid especial stress upon the existence
of dendritic deposits, with which their surface was cov-
ered, and which were first noticed upon them by Professor
Mayer. To this communication I appended a brief report
on the results of my anatomical examination of the bones.
The conclusions at which I arrived were : — 1st. That the
extraordinary form of the skull was due to a natural con-
formation hitherto not known to exist, even in the most
barbarous races. 2nd. That these remarkable human re-
mains belonged to a period antecedent to the time of the
Celts and Germans, and were- in all probability derived
from one of the wild races of ITorth-western Europe,
spoken of by Latin writers ; and which were encountered
as autochthones by the German immigrants. And 3rdly.
That it was beyond doubt that these human relics were
traceable to a period at which the latest animals of the
diluvium still existed ; but that no proof of this assump-
tion, nor consequently of their so-termed fossil condition,
was afforded by the circumstances under which the bones
were discovered.
As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description
of these circumstances, I borrow the following account of
* lb. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2.
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 151
them from one of his letters. " A small cave or grotto,
high enough to admit a man, and about 15 feet deep from
the entrance, which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the south-
ern wall of the gorge of the ]S"eanderthal, as it is termed,
at a distance of about 10 feet from the Diissel, and about
60 feet above the bottom of the valley. In its earlier and
uninjm-ed condition, this cavern opened upon a narrow
plateau lying in front of it, and from which the rocky
wall descended almost perpendicularly into the river. It
could be reached, though with difficulty, from above.
The uneven floor was covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet
with a deposit of mud, sparingly intermixed with rounded
fragments of chert. In the removing of this deposit, the
bones were discovered. The skull was first noticed, placed
nearest to the entrance of the cavern ; and further in, the
other bones, lying in the same horizontal plane. Of this
I was assured in the most positive terms, by two labourers
who were employed to clear out the grotto, and who were
questioned by me on the spot. At first no idea was enter-
tained of the bones being human ; and it was not till sev-
eral weeks after their discovery that they were recognised
as such by me, and placed in security. But, as the im-
portance of the discovery was not at the time perceived,
the labourers were very careless in the collecting, and
secured chiefly only the larger bones ; and to this circum-
stance it may be attributed that fragments merely of the
probably perfect skeleton came into my possession."
^' My anatomical examination of these bones afforded
the following results : —
The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long-elliptical
form. A most remarkable peculiarity is at once obvious
in the extraordinary development of the frontal sinuses,
owing to which the superciliary ridges, which coalesce
completely in the middle, are rendered so prominent, that
152 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
the frontal bone exhibits a considerable hollow or depres-
sion above or rather behind them, whilst a deep depres-
sion is also formed in the situation of the root of the nose.
The forehead is narrow and low, though the middle and
hinder portions of the cranial arch are well developed.
Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that has been
preserved consists only of the portion situated above the
roof of the orbits and the superior occipital ridges, which
are greatly developed, and almost conjoined so as to form
a horizontal eminence. It includes almost the whole of
the frontal bone, both parietals, a small part of the squa-
mous and the upper-third of the occij^ital. The recently
fractured surfaces show that the skull was broken at the
time of its disinterment. The cavity holds 16,876 grains
of water, whence its cubical contents may be estimated at
57.64: inches, or 1033.24 cubic centimetres. In making
this estimation, the water .is supposed to stand on a level
with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the deepest
notch in the squamous margin of the parietal, and with
the superior semicircular ridges of the occipital. Esti-
mated in dried millet-seed, the contents equalled 31
ounces, Prussian Apothecaries' weight. The semicircular
line indicating the upper boundary of the attachment of
the temporal muscle, though not very strongly marked,
ascends nevertheless to more than half the height of the
parietal bone. On the right superciliary ridge is observa-
ble an oblique furrow or depression, indicative of an in-
jury received during life."^ The coronal and sagittal su-
tures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on the inside
so completely ossified as to have left no traces whatever,
whilst the lambdoidal remains quite open. The depres-
sions for the Pacchionian glands are deep and numerous ;
* This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the notch for the frontal
nerve.
FOSSIL KEMALNS OF MAN. 153
and there is an unusually deep vascular groove immediately
behind the coronal suture, which, as it terminates in a
foramen, no doubt transmitted a vena emissaria. The
com'se of the frontal suture is indicated externally by a
slight ridge ; and where it joins the coronal, this ridge
rises into a small protuberance. The course of the sagittal
suture is grooved, and above the angle of the occipital
bone the parietals are depressed.
mm*
The length of the skull from the
nasal process of the frontal
over the vertex to the supe-
rior semicircular lines of the
occipital measures .... 303 (300) = 12*0'''.
Circumference over the orbital
ridges and the superior semi-
cu-cular lines of the occipital. 590 (590)=23-37'' or 23".
Width of the frontal from the
middle of the temporal line
on one side to the same point
on the opposite 104(114:)= 4-r'_4-5'^
Length of the frontal from the
nasal process to the coronal
suture '. . .133(125)= 5-25'^— 5^^
Extreme width of the frontal
sinuses 25 (23) = I'O^' —0-9^
Vertical height above a line
joining the deepest notches in
the squamous border of the
parietals 70 =2-75.
"Width of hinder part of skull
from one parietal protuberance
to the other 138 (150) = 5-4^' — 5-9^'
* The nmnbers in brackets are those which I should assign to the differ
ent measures, as taken from the plaster cast. — G. B.
7*
//
154: FOSSIL KEMAINS OF MAN.
Distance from tlie upper angle
of tlie occipital to the supe-
rior semicircular lines ... 51 (60) = 1'9^' — 2"4'''.
Thickness of the bone at the
parietal protuberance ... 8. .
at the angle of the occipital 9.
at the superior semicircular
line of the occipital .... 10 = 0*3'
}ir
Besides the cranium, the following bones have been
secured : —
1. Both thigh-bones, perfect. These, like the skull,
and all the other bones, are characterized bv their unusual
thickness, and the great development of all the elevations
and depressions for the attachment of muscles. In the
Anatomical Museum at Bonn, under the designation of
" Giant's-bones," are some recent thigh-bones, with which
in thickness the foregoing pretty nearly correspond, al-
though they are shorter.
Giant's bones. Fossil bones,
mm. mm.
Length 642 = 21-4:'' ...438 = 174".
Diameter of head of femur. 54 = 2*14" ... 53 = 2*0".
" of lower articular
end, from one condyle to
the other 89= 3-5" ... 87= 3-4".
Diameter of femm" in the
middle 33= 1-2" ... 30= I'l".
2. A perfect right humerus, whose size shows that it
belongs to the thigh-bones.
mm.
Length 312 = 12-3".
Thickness in the middle . . 26 = 1*0"
Diameter of head .... 49= 1-9".
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 155
Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimen-
sions, and the upper-third of a right uhia corresponding to
the humerus and radius.
3. A left humerus, of which the upper-third is want-
ing, and which is so much slenderer than the right as ap-
parently to belong to a distinct individual ; a left iilna^
which, though complete, is pathologically deformed, the
coronoid process being so much enlarged bj bony growth,
that flexure of the elbow beyond a right angle must have
been impossible ; the anterior fossa of the humerus for the
reception of the coronoid process being also filled up with
a similar bony growth. At the same time, the olecranon
is curved strongly downwards. As the bone presents no
sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be supposed that an
injury sustained during life was the cause of the anchylo-
sis. When the left ulna is compared with the right ra-
dius, it might at first sight be concluded that the bones
respectively belonged to different individuals, the ulna
beins: more than half an inch too short for articulation
with a corresponding radius. But it is clear that this
shortening, as well as the attenuation of the left humerus,
are both consequent upon the pathological condition above
described.
4. A left ilium, almost perfect, and belonging to the
femur; a fi-agment of the right scapula f' the anterior
extremity of a rib of the right side ; and the same part of
a rib of the left side ; the hinder part of a rib of the right
side ; and, lastly, two hinder portions and one middle por-
tion of ribs, which, from their unusually rounded shape,
and abrupt curvature, more resemble the ribs of a carnivo-
rous animal than those of a man. Dr. H. v. Meyer, how-
ever, to whose judgment I defer, will not venture to de-
clare them to be ribs of any animal ; and it only remains
to suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen from
156 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
an ■umisiiallj powerful development of tlie thoracic
muscles.
The bones adhere strongly to the tongue, although, as
proved by the use of hydrochloric acid, the greater part
of the cartilage is still retained in them, which appears,
however, to have undergone that transformation into gela-
tine which has been observed by v. Bibra in fossil bones.
The surface of all the bones is in many spots covered with
minute black specks, which, more especially under a lens,
are seen to be formed of very delicate dendrites. These
deposits, which were first observed on the bones by Dr.
Mayer, are most distinct on the inner surface of the cra-
nial bones. They consist of a ferruginous compound, and,
from their black colour, may be supj^osed to contain man-
ganese. Similar dendritic formations also occur, not un-
frequently, on laminated rocks, and are usually found in
minute fissures and cracks. At the meeting of the Lower
Rhine Society at Bonn, on the 1st April, 1857, Prof.
Mayer stated that he had noticed in the museum of Pop-
pelsdorf similar dendritic crystallizations on several fossil
bones of animals, and particularly on those of Ursus spe-
IcBus, but still more abundantly and beautifully displayed
on the fossil bones and teeth of Equus adamiticus^ Ele-
phas priinigenius^ &c., from the caves of Bolve and Sund-
w^ig. Faint indications of similar dendrites were visible
in a Roman skull from Siegburg ; whilst other ancient
skulls, which had lain for centuries in the earth, presented
no trace of them.* I am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the
following remarks on this subject : —
" The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which
were formerly regarded as a sign of a truly fossil condi-
tion, is interesting. It has even been supposed that in
diluvial deposits the presence of dendrites might be re-
* Verb, des Naturhist. Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857.
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 157
garded as affording a certain mark of distinction between
bones mixed with the diluvium at a somewhat later period
and the true diluvial relics, to which alone it was supposed
that these deposits were confined. But I have long been
convinced that neither can the absence of dendrites be
regarded as indicative of recent age, nor their presence as
sufficient to establish the great antiquity of the objects
upon which they occur. I have myself noticed upon
paper, which could scarcely be more than a year old, den-
dritic deposits, which could not be distinguished from
those on fossil bones. Thus I possess a dog's skull from
the Koman colony of the neighbouring Heddersheim,
Castrura Hadrianum^ which is in no way distinguishable
from the fossil bones from the Frankish caves ; it presents
the same colour, and adheres to the tongue just as they
do ; so that this character also, which, at a former meeting
of German naturalists at Bonn, gave rise to amusing
scenes between Buckland and Schmerling, is no longer of
any value. In disputed cases, therefore, the condition of
the bone can scarcely afibrd the means for determining
with certainty whether it be fossil, that is to say, whether
it belong to geological antiquity or to the historical
period."
As we cannot now look npon the primitive world as
representing a wholly different condition of things, from
which no transition exists to the organic life of the present
time, the designation oi fossil as applied to a hone., has no
longer the sense it conveyed in the time of Cuvier. Suffi-
cient grounds exist for the assumption that man coexisted
with the animals found in the dihimum ; and many a
barbarous race may, before all historical time, have disap-
peared together with the animals of the ancient world,
whilst the races whose organization is improved have con-
tinued the genus. . The bones which form the subject of
158 FOSSIL KEMAINS OF MAN.
this paper present characters ^vhich, although not decisive
as regards a geological epoch, are, nevertheless, such as
indicate a very high antiquity. It may also be remarked
that, common as is the occurrence of diluvial animal bones
in the muddy deposits of caverns, such remains have not
hitherto been met with in the caves of the JSTeanderthal ;
and that the bones, which were covered by a deposit of
mud not more than four or five feet thick, and without any
protective covering of stalagmite, have retained the great-
est part of their organic substance.
These circumstances might be adduced against the
probability of a geological antiquity. ISTor should we be
justified in regarding the cranial conformation as perhaps
representing the most savage primitive type of the human
race, since crania exi^t among living savages, which,
though not exhibiting such a remarkable conformation of
the forehead, which gives the skull somewhat the aspect
of that of the large apes, still in other respects, as for in-
stance in the greater depth of the temporal fossae, the
crest-like, prominent temporal ridges, and a generally less
capacious cranial cavity, exhibit an equally low stage of
development. There is no reason for supposing that the
deep frontal hollow is due to any artificial flattening, such
as is practised in various modes by barbarous nations in
the Old and IS'ew "World, The skull is quite symmetrical,
and shows no indication of counter-pressure at the occiput,
whilst, according to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the Co-
lumbia, the frontal and parietal bones are always unsym-
metrical. Its conformation exhibits the sparing develop-
ment of the anterior part of the head which has been so
often observed in very ancient crania, and afibrds one of
the most striking proofs of the influence of culture and
civilization on the form of the human skull." •
In a subsequent passage, Dr. Schaaflfhausen remarks :
FOSSIL REMAINS OF UAU. 159
" There is no reason whatever for regarding the un-
nsnal development of the frontal sinuses in the remarkable
skull from the Neanderthal as an individual or pathologi-
cal deformity ; it is unquestionably a typical race-charac-
ter, and is physiologically connected with the uncommon
thickness of the other bones of the skeleton, which exceeds
by about one-half the usual proportions. This expansion
of the frontal sinuses, which are appendages of the air-
passages, also indicates an unusual force and power of en-
durance in the movements of the body, as may be con-
cluded from the size of all the ridges and processes for the
attachment of the muscles or bones. That this conclusion
may be drawn from the existence of large frontal sinuses,
and a prominence of the lower frontal region, is confirmed
in many ways by other observations. By the same char-
acters, according to Pallas, the wild horse is distinguished
from the domesticated, and, according to Cuvier, the fossil
cave-bear from every recent species of bear, whilst, accord-
ing to Eoulin, the pig, which has become wild in America,
and regained a resemblance to the wild boar, is thus dis-
tinguished from the same animal in the domesticated
state, as is the chamois from the goat ; and, lastly, the
bull-dog, which is characterised by its large bones and
strongly-developed muscles from every other kind of dog.
The estimation of the facial angle, the determination of
which, according to Professor Owen, is also difficult in the
great apes, owing to the very prominent supra-orbital
ridges, in the present case is rendered still more difficult
from the absence both of the auditory opening and of the
nasal spine. But if the proper horizontal position of the
skull be taken from the remaining portions of the orbital
plates, and the ascending line made to touch the surface
of the frontal bone behind the prominent supra-orbital
160 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
ridges, the facial angle is not found to exceed 66°.^ Un-
fortunately, no portions of the facial bones, whose confor-
mation is so decisive as regards the form and expression
of the head, have been preserved. The cranial capacity,
compared with the uncommon strength of the corporeal
frame, would seem to indicate a small cerebral develop-
ment. The skull, as it is, holds about 31 ounces of millet-
seed ; and as, from the proportionate size of the wanting
bones, the whole cranial cavity should have about 6
ounces more added, the contents, were it perfect, may be
taken at 37 ounces. Tiedemann assigns, as the cranial
contents in the Negro, 40, 38, and 35 ounces. The cra-
nium holds rather more than 36 ounces of water, which
corresponds to a capacity of 1033*24: cubic centimetres.
Huschke estimates the cranial contents of a Negress at
1127 cubic centimetres ; of an old Negro at 1146 cubic
centimetres. The capacity of the Malay skulls, estimated
by water, equalled 36, 33 ounces, whilst in the diminutive
Hindoos it falls to as little as 27 ounces."
After comparing the Neanderthal cranium with many
others, ancient and modern. Professor Schaaff hausen con-
cludes thus :—
'' But the human bones and cranium from the Nean-
derthal exceed all the rest in those peculiarities of confor-
mation which lead to the conclusion of their belonging to
a barbarous and savage race. Whether the cavern in
which they were found, unaccompanied with any trace of
Jiuman art, were the place of their interment, or whether,
like the bones of extinct animals elsewhere, they had been
washed into it, they may still be regarded as the most an-
cient memorial of the early inhabitants of Europe."
Mr. Busk, the translator of Dr. Schaaff hausen's paper,
* Estimating the facial angle in the way suggested, on the cast I should
place it at 64° to 6*7°.— G. B.
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163 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
has enabled us to form a very vivid conception of the de-
graded character of the JSTeanderthal skull, by placing
side by side with its outline, that of the skull of a Chim-
panzee, drawn to the same absolute size.
Some time after the publication of the translation of
Professor Schaaif hausen's Memoir, I was led to study the
cast of the J^eanderthal cranium with more attention than
I had previously bestowed upon it, in consequence of
wishing to supply Sir Charles Lyell with a diagram, ex-
hibiting the special peculiarities of this skull, as compared
with other human skulls. In order to do this it was
necessary to identify, with precision, those points in the
skulls compared which corresponded anatomically. Of
these points, the glabella was obvious enough ; but when
I had distinguished another, defined by the occipital pro-
tuberance and superior semicircular line, and had placed
the outline of the Neanderthal skull against that of the
Engis skull, in such a position that the glabella and oc-
cipital protuberance of both were intersected by the same
straight line, the difference was bo vast and the flattening
of the N^eanderthal skull so prodigious (compare Figs. 23
and 25 A), that I at first imagined I must have fallen into
some error. And I was the more inclined to suspect this,
as, in ordinary human skulls, the occipital protuberance
and superior semicircular curved line on the exterior of
the occiput correspond pretty closely with the lateral
sinuses ' and the line of attachment of the tentorium inter-
nally. But on the tentorimn rests, as I have said in the
preceding Essay, the posterior lobe of the brain ; and
hence, the occipital protuberance, and the curved line in
question, indicate, approximately, the lower limits of that
lobe. Was it possible for a human being to have the brain
thus flattened and depressed ; or, on the other hand, had
the muscular ridges shifted their position ? In order to
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
163
solve these doubts, and to decide the question whether the
great suj)raciliary projections did, or did not, arise from
the development of the frontal sinuses, I requested Su*
Charles Lyell to be so good as to obtain for me from Dr.
Fuhlrott, the possessor of the skull, answers to certain
queries, and if possible a cast, or at any rate drawings, or
photographs, of the interior of the skull.
Dr. Fuhbott replied, with a courtesy and readiness for
Fig. 26. — Drawings from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs of parts of the inte-
rior of the Neanderthal cranium. A. view of the under and inner surface of
the frontal region, showing the inferior apertures of the frontal sinuses (a).
B. corresponding view of the occipital region of the skull, showing the im-
pressions of the lateral sinuses (aa).
164 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
wliich I am infinitely indebted to him, to my inquiries,
and turthermore sent tliree excellent photographs. One
of these gives a side view of the skull, and from it Fig. '25
A. has been shaded. The second (Fig. 26 A.) exhibits
the wide openings of the frontal sinuses upon the inferior
surface of the frontal part of the skull, into which, Dr.
Fuhlrott writes, " a probe may be introduced to the depth •
of an inch," and demonstrates the great extension of the
thickened supraciliary ridges beyond the cerebral cavity.
The third, lastly, (Fig. 26 B.) exhibits the edge and the
interior of the posterior, or occipital, part of the skull, and
shows very clearly the two depressions for the lateral si-
nuses, sweeping inwards towards the middle line of the roof
of the skull, to form the longitudinal sinus. It was clear,
therefore, that I had not erred in my interpretation, and
that the posterior lobe of the brain of the Neanderthal
man must have been as much flattened as I suspected it
to be.
In truth, the l^eanderthal cranium has most extraordi-
nary characters. It has an extreme length of 8 inches,
while its breath is only 5*75 inches, or, in other words, its
length is to its breadth as 100 : 72. It is exceedingly de-
pressed, measuring only about 34 inches from the gla-
bello-occipital line to the vertex. The longitndinal arc,
measured in the same way as in the Engis skull, is 12
inches ; the transverse arc cannot be exactly ascertained,
in consequence of the absence of the temporal bones, but
was probably about the same, and certainly exceeded 10^
inches. The horizontal circumference is 23 inches. But
this great circumference arises largely from the vast devel-
opment of the supraciliary ridges, though the perimeter
of the brain case itself is not small. The large supraciliary
ridges give the forehead a far more retreating appearance
than its internal contour would bear out.
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 165
To an anatomical eye tlie posterior part of the skull is
even more striking than the anterior. The occipital pro-
tuberance occupies the extreme posterior end of the skull,
when the glabello-occipital line is made horizontal, and so
far from any part of the occipital region extending beyond
it, this region of the skull slopes obliquely upward and
forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is situated well
upon the upper surface of the cranium. At the same time,
notwithstanding the great length of the skull, the sagittal
sutm'e is remarkably short (4^ inches), and the squamosal
suture is very straight.
In reply to my questions Dr. Fuhlrott writes that the
occipital bone " is in a state of perfect preservation as far
as the upper semicircular line, which is a very strong
ridge, linear at its extremities, but enlarging towards the
middle, where it forms two ridges (bourrelets), united by
a -linear continuation, which is slightly depressed in the
middle."
^' Below the left ridge the bone exhibits an obliquely
inchned surface, six lines (French) long, and twelve lines
wide."
This last must be the surface, the contour of which is
shown in Fig. 25 a, below 5. It is particularly interest-
ing, as it suggests that, notwithstanding the flattened con-
dition of the occiput, the posterior cerebral lobes must
have projected considerably beyond the cerebellum, and
as it constitutes one among several points of similarity be-
tween the llTeanderthal cranium and certain Australian
skulls.
Such are the two best known forms of human cranium,
which have been found in what mav be fairlv termed a
fossil state. Can either be shown to fill up or diminish, to
any appreciable extent, the stnictural interval which exists
166 FOSSIL EEMAINS OF MAN.
between Man and the man-like apes ? Or, on the other
hand, does neither depart more widely from the average
structure of the human cranium, than normally formed
skulls of men are known to do at the present day ?
It is impossible to form any opinion on these questions,
without some preliminary acquaintance with the range of
variation exhibited by human structure in general — a sub-
ject which has been but imperfectly studied, while even
of what is known, my limits wdll necessarily allow me to
give only a very imperfect sketch.
The student of anatomy is perfectly well aware that
there is not a siugle organ of the human body the struc-
ture of which does not vary, to a greater or less extent, in
different individuals. The skeleton varies in the propor-
tions, and even to a certain extent in the connexions, of its
constituent bones. The muscles which move the bones
vary largely in their attachments. The varieties in the
mode of distribution of the arteries are carefully classified,
on account of the practical importance of a knowledge of
their shiftings to the surgeon. The characters of the brain
vary immensely, nothing being less constant than the form
and size of the cerebral hemispheres, and the richness of
the convolutions upon their surface, while the most change-
able structures of all in the human brain, are exactly those
on which the unwise attempt has been made to base the
distinctive characters of humanity, viz. the posterior cornu
of the lateral ventricle, the hippocampus minor, and the
degree of projection of the posterior lobe beyond the cere-
bellum. Finally, as all the world knows, the hair and
skin of human beings may present the most extraordinary
diversities in colour and in texture.
So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority of
the structural varieties to which allusion is here made, are
individual. The ape-like arrangement of certain muscles
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 167
which is occasionally met with* in the white races of man-
kind, is not known to be more common among Negroes or
Australians : nor because the brain of the Hottentot Ye-
nns was found to be smoother, to have its convolutions
more symmetricallj disposed, and to be, so far, more ape-
like than that of ordinary Em-opeans, are we justified in
concluding a like condition of the brain to prevail univer-
sally among the lower races of mankind, however probable
that conclusion may be.
"We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information respect-
ing the disposition of the soft and destructible organs of
every Race of Mankind but our own ; and even of the
skeleton, our Museums are lamentably deficient in every
part but the cranium. Skulls enough there are, and since
the time when Blumenbach and Camper first called atten-
tion to the marked and singular difierences which they
exhibit, skull collecting and skull measuring has been a
zealously pursued branch of ITatural History, and the re-
sults obtained have been arranged and classified by various
writers, among whom the late active and able Retzius
must always be the first named.
Human skulls have been found to difier from one an-
other, not merely in their absolute size and in the absolute
capacity of the brain case, but in the proportions which
the diameters of the latter bear to one another ; in the rel-
ative size of the bones of the face (and more particularly
of the jaws and teeth) as compared with those of the skull ;
in the degree to which the upper jaw (which is of course
followed by the lower) is thrown backwards and down-
wards under the forepart of the brain case, or forwards
and upwards in front of and beyond it. They differ fur-
ther in the relations of the transverse diameter of the face,
* See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of the Orang, bx
the Natural History Review, for 1861.
168
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
Fig. 2*7.— Side and front views of the round and orthognathous skull of a
'Calmuck after Von Baer. One-third the natural size.
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 169
taken through the cheek bones, to the transverse diameter
of the skull ; in the more rounded or more gable-like form
of the roof of the skull, and in the degree to which the
hinder part of the skull is flattened or projects bejond the
ridge, into and below which, the muscles of the neck are
inserted.
In some skulls the brain case may be said to be
' Tound^ the extreme length not exceeding the extreme
breadth by a greater proportion than 100 to 80, while the
difierence may be much less.* Men possessing such skulls
were termed by Ketzius ' hrachycejpJialic^ and the skull
of a Calmuck, of which a front and side view (reduced
outline copies of which are given in figure 2Y) are de-
picted by Yon Baer in his excellent " Crania selecta,"
affords a very admirable example of that kind of skull.
Other skulls, such as that of a N^egro copied in fig. 28
from Mr. Busk's ' Crania typica,' have a very different,
greatly elongated form, and may be termed ' oblong.^ In
this skull the extreme length is to the extreme breadth as
100 to not more than 67, and the transverse diameter of
the human skull may fall below even this proportion.
People having such skulls were called byRetzius ' dolicho-
GcjpJialic.^
The most cursory glance at the side views of these two
skulls will suffice to prove that they differ, in another re-
spect, to a very striking extent. The profile of the face
of the Calmuck is almost vertical, the facial bones being
thrown downwards and under the fore part of the skull.
The profile of the face of the E"egro, on the other hand, is
singularly inclined, the front part of the jaws projecting
far forward beyond the level of the fore part of the skull.
In the former case the skull is said to be ' orthognathous '
* In no normal human skull does the breadth of the brain case exceed its
length.
8
170
FOSSIL EEMAINS OF MAN.
or straight-jawed ; in the latter, it is called ^ prognathous^
— r
Fig. 28. — Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro ; side and front views
One-third of the natural size.
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 171
a term whicli has been rendered, with more force than
elegance, by the Saxon equivalent, — ' snout j.'
Various methods have been devised in order to express
with some accuracy the degree of prognathism or ortho-
gnathism of any given skull ; most of these methods being
essentially modifications of that devised by Peter Camper,
in order to attain what he called the ' facial ano;le.'
But a little consideration will show that any ' facial
angle ' that has been devised, can be competent to express
the structm-al modifications involved in prognathism and
orthognathism, only in a rough and general sort of way.
For the lines, the intersection of which forms the facial
angle, are drawn through points of the skull, the position
of each of which is modified by a number of circum-
stances, so that the angle obtained is a complex resultant
of all these circumstances, and is not the expression of any
one definite organic relation of the parts of the skull.
I have arrived at the conviction that no comparison
of crania is worth very much, that is not founded upon
the establishment of a relatively fixed base line, to which
the measurements, in all cases, must be referred. Nor do
I think it is a very difiicult matter to decide what that
base line should be. The parts of the skull, like those of
the rest of the animal framework, are developed in suc-
cession : the base of the skull is formed before its sides
and roof ; it is converted into cartilage earlier and more
completely than the sides and roof: and the cartilaginous
base ossifies, and becomes soldered into one piece long
before the roof. I conceive then that the base of the skull
may be demonstrated developmentally to be its relatively
fixed part, the roof and sides being relatively moveable.
The same truth is exemplified by the study of the
modifications which the skull undergoes in ascending from
the lower animals up to man.
172
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
In such a mammal as a Beaver (Fig. 29), a line {a. h.)
drawn through the bones, termed basioccipital, basisphe-
BeavET.
•IJentur;
Fig. 29. — Longitudinal and vertical sections of the skulls of a Beaver
{Castor Canadensis), a Lemur (L. Catta), and a Baboon {Cynocephalus
Papio\ a 6, the basicranial axis ; h c, the occipital plane ; i T, the tentorial
plane ; a c?, the olfactory plane ; / e, the basifacial axis ; c 6 a, occipital
angle \ T % a, tentorial angle \ d a h, olfactory angle \ e f h, cranio-facial
angle ; g k, extreme length of the cavity which lodges the cerebral hemi-
spheres or ' cerebral length.' The length of the basicranial axis as to this
length, or, in other words, the proportional length of the line g hto that of
a b taken as 100, in the three skulls, is as follows : — Beaver 70 to 100 ; Le-
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 173
noid, and presplienoid, is very long in proportion to the
extreme length of the cavity which contains the cerebral
hemispheres {(j. h.). The plane of the occipital foramen
{b. c.) forms a slightly acute angle with this ' basicranial
axis,' while the plane of the tentorium {i. T.) is inclined
at rather more than 90° to the ' basicranial axis ' ; and so
is the plane of the perforated plate (a. d.\ by which the
filaments of the olfactory nerve leave the skull. Again,
a line drawn through the axis of the face, between the
bones called ethmoid and vomer — the '* basifacial axis "
{f. e.) forms an exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when
produced, it cuts the ' basicranial axis.'
If the angle made by the line h. c. with a. h., be called
the ' occipital angle,' and the angle made by the line a. d.
with a. h. be termed the ' olfactory angle,' and that made
by i. T, with a. h. the ' tentorial angle,' then all these, in
the mammal in question, are nearly right angles, varying
between 80° and 110°. The angle e.f. 5., or that made
by the cranial with the facial- axis, and which may be
termed the ' cranio-facial angle,' is extremely obtuse,
amounting, in the case of the Beaver, to at least 150°.
But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls, inter-
mediate beween a Bodent and a Man (Fig. 29), be exam-
ined, it will be found that in the higher crania the basi-
cranial axis becomes shorter relatively to the cerebral
length ; that the ' olfactory angle ' and ' occipital angle '
become more obtuse ; and that the ' cranio-facial angle,'
mur 119 to 100; Baboon 144 to 100. In an adult male Gorilla the cerebral
length is as 170 to the basicranial axis taken as 100, in the Negro (fig. 30) as
236 to 100. In the Constantinople skull (fig. 30) as 266 to 100. The cranial
difference between the highest Ape's skull and the lowest Man's is therefore
very strikingly brought out by these measurements.
In the diagram of the Baboon's skull the dotted lines <P(P^ &c. give the
angles of the Lemur's and Beaver's skull, as laid down upon the basicranial
axis of the Baboon. The line a h has the same length in each diagram.
174 FOSSIL KEMAINS OF MAN.
becomes more acute by the bending down, as it were, of
the facial axis upon the cranial axis. At the same time,
the roof of the cranium becomes more and more arched,
to allow of the increasing height of the cerebral hemi-
spheres, which is eminently characteristic of man, as well
as of that backward extension, beyond the cerebellum,
which reaches its maximum in the South American mon-
keys. So that, at last, in the human skull (Fig. 30), the
cerebral length is between twice and thrice as great as
the length of the basicranial axis ; the olfactory plane is
20° or 30° on the %mder side of that axis ; the occipital
angle, instead of being less than 90°, is as much as 150°
or 160° ; the cranio-facial angle may be 90° or less, and
the vertical height of the skull may have a large propor-
tion to its length.
It will be obvious, from an inspection of the diagrams,
that the basicranial axis is, in the ascending series of
Mammalia, a relatively fixed line, on which the bones of
the sides and roof of the cranial cavity, and of the face,
may be said to revolve downwards and forwards or back-
wards, according to their position. The arc described by
any one bone or plane, however, is not by any means al-
ways in proportion to the arc described by another.
N^ow comes the important question, can we discern,
between the lowest and the highest forms of the human
cranium, anything answering, in however slight a degree,
to this revolution of the side and roof bones of the skull
upon the basicranial axis observed upon so great a scale
in the mammalian series ? l^umerous observations lead
me to believe that we must answer this question in the
affirmative.
The diagrams in figure 30 are reduced from very care-
fully made diagrams of sections of four skulls, two round
and orthognathous, two long and prognathous, taken Ion-
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
175
gitudinallj and vertically, through the middle. The sec-
tional diagrams then have been superimposed, in such a
manner, that the basal axes of the skulls coincide by their
anterior ends and in their direction. The deviations of
the rest of the contours (which represent the interior of
Fig. 30. — Sections of orthognathous (light contour) and prognathous (dark
contour) skulls, one-third of the natural size, a b, Basicranial axis ; b c, 6'c',
plane of the occipital foramen ; d d\ hinder end of the palatine bone ; e e\
front end of the upper jaw ; TT, insertion of the tentorium.
176 FOSSIL KEMAESrS OF MAN.
the skulls only) show the differences of the skulls from
one another when these axes are regarded as relatively
fixed lines.
The dark contours are those of an Australian and of a
Negro skull : the light contours are those of a Tartar
skull, in the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons ;
and of a well developed round skull from a cemetery in
Constantinople, of uncertain race, in my own possession.
It appears, at once, from these views, that the progna-
thous skulls, so far as their jaws are concerned, do really
differ from the orthognathous in much the same way as,
though to a far less degree than, the skulls of the lower
mammals differ from those of Man. Furthermore, the
plane of the occipital foramen (b c) forms a somewhat
smaller angle with the axis in these particular progna-
thous skulls than in the orthognathous ; and the like may
be slightly true of the perforated plate of the ethmoid —
though this point is not so clear. But it is singular to
remark that, in another respect, the prognathous skulls
are less ape-like than the orthognathous, the cerebral
cavity projecting decidedly more beyond the anterior end
of the axis in the prognathous, than in the orthognathous,
skulls.
It will be observed that these diagrams reveal an im-
mense range of variation in the capacity and relative pro-
portion to the cranial axis, of the different regions of the
cavity which contains the brain, in the different skulls.
!Nor is the difference in the extent to which the cerebral
overlaps the cerebellar cavity less singular. A round
skull (Fig. 30, Const.) may have a greater posterior cere-
bral projection than a long one (Fig. 30, Negro).
Until human crania have been largely worked out in
a manner similar to that here suggested — until it shall be
an opprobrium to an ethnological collection to possess a
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 177
single skull which is not bisected longitudinally — until
the angles and measurements here mentioned, together
with a number of others of which I cannot speak in this
place, are determined, and tabulated with reference to the
basicranial axis as unity, for large numbers of skulls of the
different races of Mankind, I do not think we shall have
any very safe basis for that ethnological craniology which
aspires to give the anatomical characters of the crania of
the different Races of Mankind.
At present, I believe that the general outlines of what
may be safely said upon that subject may be summed up
in a very few words. Draw a line on a globe from the
Gold Coast in Western Africa to the steppes of Tartary.
At the southern and western end of that line there live
the most dolichocephalic, prognathous, curly-haired, dark-
skinned of men — ^the true Negroes. At the northern and
eastern end of the same line there live the most brachy-
cephalic, orthognathous, straight-haired, yellow-skinned
of men — the Tartars and Calmucks. The two ends of this
imaginary line are indeed, so to speak, ethnological anti-
podes. A line drawn at right angles, or nearly so, to this-
polar line through Europe and Southern Asia to Hindos-
tan, would give us a sort of equator, around which round-
headed, oval-headed, and oblong-headed, prognathous and
orthognathous, fair and dark races — but none possessing
the excessively marked characters of Calmuck or I^egro —
group themselves.
It is worthy of notice that the regions of the antipodal
races are antipodal in climate, the greatest contrast the
world affords, perhaps, being that between the damp, hot,
steaming, alluvial coast plains of the West Coast of Africa
and the arid, elevated steppes and plateaux of Central
Asia, bitterly cold in winter, and as far from the sea as
any part of the world can be.
8* ■
178 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific Islands and
sub-continents on the one hand, and to America on the
other, brachjcephaly and orthognathism gradually dimin-
ish, and are replaced by dolichocephaly and prognathism,
less, however, on the American Continent (throughout the
whole length of which a rounded type of skull prevails
largely, but not exclusively)^ than in the Pacific region,
where, at length, on the Australian Continent and in the
adjacent islands, the oblong skull, the projecting jaws, and
the dark skin reappear ; with so much departure, in other
respects, from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to
these people the special title of ' liegritoes.'
Tlie Australian skull is remarkable for its narrowness
and for the thickness of its walls, especially in the region
of the supraciliary ridge, which is frequently, though not
by any means invariably, solid throughout, the frontal
sinuses remaining undeveloped. The nasal depression,
again, is extremely sudden, so that the brows overhang
and give the countenance a particularly lowering, threat-
ening expression. The occipital region of the skull, also,
jiot unfrequently becomes less prominent ; so that it not
only fails to project beyond a line drawn perpendicular to
the hinder extremity of the glabello-occipital line, but
even, in some cases, begins to shelve away from it, for-
wards, almost immediately. In consequence of this cir-
cumstance the parts of the occipital bone which lie above
and below the tuberosity make a much more acute angle
with one another than is usual, whereby the hinder part
of the base of the skull appears obliquely truncated.
Many Australian skulls have a considerable height, quite
equal to that of the average of any other race, but there
* See Dr. D. Wilson's valuable paper " On the supposed prevalence of
one Cranial Type throughout the American aborigines." — Canadian Journal,
Vol. II. 185Y.
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAli.
179
are others in which the cranial roof becomes remarkably
depressed, the skull, at the same time, elongating so much
that, probably, its capacity is not diminished. The ma-
jority of skulls possessing these characters which I have
seen, are from the neighbourhood of Port Adelaide in
South Australia, and have been used by the natives as
water vessels ; to which end the face has been knocked
away, and a string passed through the vacuity and the
occipital foramen, so that the skull was suspended by the
greater part of its basis.
Figure 31 represents the contour of a skull of this kind
from "Western Port, with the jaw attached, and of the
E'eanderthal skull, both reduced to one third of the size
of nature. A small additional amount of flattening and
lengthening, with a corresponding increase of the supra-
FiG. 31. — An Australian skull from Western Port, in the Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons, with the contour of the Neanderthal skull. Both
reduced to one-third the natural size.
180 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
ciliary ridge would convert tlie Australian brain case into
a form identical with tliat of the aberrant fossil.
And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to the rank
which they occupy among, or beyond, these existing varie-
ties of cranial conformation. In the first place, I must
remark, that, as Professor Schmerling well observed {sti-
prd, p. 142) in commenting upon the Engis skull, the
formation of a safe judgment upon the question is greatly
hindered by the absence of the jaws from both the crania,
so that there is no means of deciding, with certainty,
whether they were more or less prognathous than the
lower existing races of mankind. And yet, as we have
seen, it is more in this respect than any other, that human
skulls vary, towards and from, the brutal type — the brain
case of an average dolichocephalic European differing far
less from that of a I*Tegro, for example, than his jaws do.
In the absence of the jaws, then, any judgment on the
relations of the fossil skulls to recent Races must be ac-
cepted with a certain reservation.
But taking the evidence as it stands, and turning first
to the Engis skull, I confess I can find no character in tlie
remains of that cranium which, if it were a recent skull,
would give any trustworthy clue as to tlie Kace to winch
it might appertain. Its contours and measurements agree
very well with those of some Australian skulls which I
have examined — and especially has it a tendency towards
that occipital flattening, to the great extent of which, in
some Australian skulls, I have alluded. But all Austra-
lian skulls do not present this flattening, and the supra-
ciliary ridge of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the
typical Australians.
On the other hand, its measurements agree equally
well with those of some European skulls. And assuredly,
FOSSIL KEMAINS OF ^lAN. 181
there is no mark of degradation about any part of its
structure. It is, in fact, a fair average human skull, which
might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have con-
tained the thoughtless brains of a savage.
The case of the l^eanderthal skull is very different.
Under whatever aspect we view this cranium, whether
we regard its vertical depression, the enormous thickness
of its supraciliary ridges, its sloping occiput, or its long
and straight squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like
characters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human
crania yet discovered. But Professor Schaaff hausen states
{supra, jp. 152), that the cranium, in its present condition,
holds 1033.24: cubic centimetres of water, or about 63
cubic inches, and as the entire skull could hardly have
held less than an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity
may be estimated at about Y5 cubic inches, which is the
average capacity given by Morton for Polynesian and
Hottentot skulls.
So large a mass of brain as this, would alone suggest
that the pithecoid tendencies, indicated by this skull, did
not extend deep into the organization ; and this conclu-
sion is borne out by the dimensions of the other bones of
the skeleton given by Professor Schaaffhausen, which
show that the absolute height and relative proportions of
the limbs were quite those of an European of middle stat-
ure. The bones are indeed stouter, but this and the great
development of the muscular ridges noted by Dr. Schaaff-
hausen, are characters to be expected in savages. The
Patagonians, exposed without shelter or protection to a
climate possibly not very dissimilar from that of Europe
at the time during which the ^Neanderthal man lived,
are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb bones.
In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be re-
garded as the remains of a human being intermediate
182
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
between Men and Apes. At most, they demonstrate the
existence of a Man whose sknll may be said to revert
somewhat towards the pithecoid type — -just as a Carrier,
or a Pouter, or a Tnmbler, may sometimes put on the
plumage of its primitive stock, the Columha livia. And
Fig. 32. — Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby ; one-third of
the natural size. From a camera lucida drawing by Mr. Busk.
FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 183
indeed, though truly the most pithecoid of known human
skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no means so isolated
as it appears to be at first, but forms, in reality, the ex-
treme term of a series leading gradually from it to the
highest and best develoj)ed of human crania. On the one
hand, it is closely approached by the flattened Australian
skulls, of which I have spoken, from which other Austra-
lian forms lead us gradually up to skulls having very much
the type of the Engis cranium. And, on the other hand,
it is even more closely affined to the skulls of certain an-
cient people who inhabited Denmark during the ' stone
period,' and were probably either contemporaneous with,
or later than, the makers of the ' refuse heaps,' or ^ Kjok-
kenmoddings ' of that country.
The correspondence between the longitudinal contour
of the l^eanderthal skull and that of some of those skulls
from the tumuli at Borreby, very accurate drawings of
which have been made by Mr. Busk, is very close. The
occiput is quite as retreating, the supraciliary ridges are
nearly as prominent, and the skull is as low. Further-
more, the Borreby skull resembles the ^Neanderthal form
more closely than any of the Australian skulls do, by the
much more rapid retrocession of the forehead. On the
other hand, the Borreby skulls are all somewhat broader,
in proportion to their length, than the ITeanderthal skull,
while some attain that proportion of breadth to length
(80 : 100) which constitutes brachycephaly.
In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains of
Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take us ap-
preciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, by the
modification of which he has, probably, become what he
is. And considering what is now known of the most an-
cient Eaces of men ; seeing that they fashioned flint axes
.184 FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN.
and flint knives and bone-skewers, of much the same pat-
tern as those fabricated by the lowest savages at the pres-
ent day, and that we have every reason to believe the
habits and modes of living of such people to have re-
mained the same from the time of the Mammoth and the
tichorhine Khinoceros till now, I do not know that this
result is other than might be expected.
Where, then, must we look for primgeval Man ? "Was
the oldest Homo swpiens pliocene or miocene, or yet more
ancient ? In still older strata do the fossilized bones of an
Ape more anthropoid, or a Man more pithecoid, than any
yet known await the researches of some unborn paleon-
tologist ?
Time will show. But, in the meanwhile, if any form
of the doctrine of progressive development is correct, we
must extend by long epochs the most liberal estimate that
has yet been made of the antiquity of Man.
THE END.
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