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DIVISION OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM

THE HRDLICKA LIBRARY

Dr. Ales Hrdlicka was placed in charge of the
Division of Physical Anthropology when it was first
established in 1903. He retired in 1942. During this

time he assembled one of the largest collections of

human skeletons in existence and made outstanding
contributions to his science. On his death, September
5, 1943, he bequeathed his library to the Division, with
the provision-that. _ tt be kept exclusively
in the-said Division, where it may be-consulted
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THE ORIGIN OF MAN,

BY

BIRGER R. HEADSTROM

1921

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Printed in the United States of America

THE ORIGIN OF MAN

As to the origin of man we do not know and
probably never will know, but such a thought
cannot prevent us from theorizing on the subject.
There are today two theories as to the origin of
man which have been universally accepted, name-
ly, the scientific and the theological, but these
theories are so vague in some instances and there
are many points which remain unexplained.
After a prolonged study I have come to a conclu-
sion which differs from these two theories, and in
the following treatise I shall endeavor to present
my theory in as clear and concise a way as pos-
sible. I shall first give an account of the origin
and evolution of animal life which I shall not
make lengthy, for to those who already have that
knowledge, the reading would only be burden-

Q THE ORIGIN OF MAN

some, and to those who have no knowledge on this
subject whatsoever, except that gleaned from the
Bible, would probably find the account uninter-
esting and tiresome, and if such be the case the
theory would not appeal to them. Furthermore
a careful perusal of the following account is
vitally important for a clear understanding of
the theory. In addition to this account I have
added a brief explanation as to the origin of the
earth and solar system and also a brief explana-
tion of the theory of light, for I deem these addi-
tions of the utmost importance. I thereby con-
clude my brief introduction with the final remark
that, although my theory is new, it is by no means
incredible and preposterous.

In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth. And the earth was without form, and
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters. And God said, let there be light, and

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 3

there was light. And God saw the light, that it
was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness. And God called the light Day, and
the darkness he called Night. And the even-
ing and the morning were the first day. And
God said, let there be a firmament in the midst
of the waters, and let it divide the waters from
the waters. And God made the firmament and
divided the waters which were under the firma-
ment from the waters which were above the firma-
ment: and it was so. And God called the firma-
ment Heaven. And the evening and the morn-
ing were the second day. And God said, Let the
waters under the heaven be gathered together
unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and
it was so. And God called the dry land Earth;
and the gathering together of the waters called
he Seas; and God saw that it was good.

The above, as you will perceive, is an extract
from the first part of the Book of Genesis. Let

A - THE ORIGIN OF MAN

us see just what is meant by the above. To be
brief let us say that in the first day God made
the waters and light. And in the second day He
made the firmament which He called Heaven.

The above is very true according to the theo-
logical point of view, but let us create this uni-
verse as science has created it. As the theological
and scientific theories, as to creation of the uni-
verse differ greatly, and as it is not my object in
the present treatise to present both sides of the
question, let us take the scientific point of view
as it serves my purpose better.

All matter in this universe is composed or made
up of small‘ particles called atoms (from the
Greek words meaning not cut or divided). A
piece of wood, a piece of coal or a piece of iron is
composed of small particles held together by mu-
tual attraction. ‘The atoms of wood, coal and
iron are not all the same, but the atoms of wood
are all alike, the atoms of coal are all alike, and
the atoms of iron are all alike.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 5

The earth is composed of a large number of
elements, these elements being all composed of
atoms. Some of the elements which are con-
stituents of the earth are oxygen, silicon, alu-
minium and iron. Now oxygen is made up of
oxygen atoms, silicon of silicon atoms, etc. Also
our planetary system which consists of the sun,
moon, stars, etc., is likewise composed of ele-
ments.

Now that we know of what the earth and
planets are composed let us use our imagination.
Before we begin I wish to say that I will present
two theories (one of which is incorrect) so that
you will form a clear conception of the scientific
theory of the formation of the universe. Let us
imagine that there was once nothing but space
and through this space let us distribute billions
and billions of atoms. In the eighteenth century
the nebular hypothesis was formed. It was
founded essentially upon the conception of the
condensation of matter or of these atoms, origin-

6 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

ally existing in a diffuse state, through gravita-
tion attraction. Or in other words these atoms
united and formed different masses. Another
essential part of this hypothesis was the concep-
tion of a nebula as a unit body, distended by heat,
and revolving as a single mass. In this nebular
hypothesis we have been dealing with only one
force, namely attraction. In the nineteenth cen-
tury evidences of another force in our stellar uni-
verse became prominent, that force being repul-
sion.

Let us then conceive that these atoms which
we have distributed through space to have become
united into one mass. Then let us suppose that
matter was thrown out from this mass or sun, and
assuming the form of a spiral nebula, not as un-
der the nebular hypothesis, as being the residue
left behind from the primal condensation of mat-
ter intoa sun. The form of the nebula was main-
tained, let us suppose, through the motion of its
particles moving in orbits, and not by the resist-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN a

ance of heated matter to condensation. Then the
scattered nebulous matter became drawn into
nuclei. The nebula consisting of planetesimals
which by the way are particles of nebulous mat-
ter, thus passed into the planetary system.
Therefore our earth was made by the condensa-
tion of atoms thrown out from a sun or mass.
This belief is known as the planetesimal hypo-
thesis and is the scientific theory of the formation
of our universe.

As the earth gradually became larger and its
attraction stronger so as to hold the gases emitted
from the volcanos, it gradually came to have an
atmosphere. When the earth reached its present
size, the atmosphere gave rise to the processes of
solution, to weathering of rocks, and to the wash-
ing together of sediments formed on the earth’s
face, and the resulting finer materials gravitated
to the lower places and eventually into the
oceanic basins. ‘This then explains the formation
of our atmosphere and oceans.

& THE ORIGIN OF MAN

And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light. And God saw the light, that it was
good: and God divided the light from the dark-
ness. And God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And the evening and
the morning were the first day.

Before we proceed we will devote a few mo-
ments of our time to the theories of light, as
light is essential to man, and to be better able to
understand the evolution of man, it will be neces-
sary to know what light really is. The source of
most of our light is, as we all know, the sun. Sir
Isaac Newton believed that light is due to the
emission of luminous particles from the source.
This hypothesis is known as the emission theory
and he appears to have adopted this hypothesis
chiefly because it explained the rectilinear propa-
gation of light. However, the wave theory which
is the more acceptable, supposes that space is
filled with a rare medium, the ether, through

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 9

which waves are propagated from luminous
bodies. We can then say that from luminous
bodies, such as the sun, waves are propagated
and which, when they reach our eye, produce the
sensation we know as light. I have thus pointed
out the scientific theories as to the origin of our
universe. We shall now turn our attention to the
origin of life on our planet, but before we proceed
let us see what life is. To know what life is, it
will be therefore necessary to take vp the subject
of matter and organisms.

Matter is that which is perceptible to the
senses. ‘The earth is composed of matter which
science recognizes as inorganic and organic. The
former is lifeless matter much of which is in the
crystal form and hence it is sometimes referred
to as the Crystal Kingdom. Organic matter
when alive manifests vitality, either in the form
of single cells or in aggregates of cells, and is
thus classified on the basis of its cell structure
and mode of nourishment into the Plant King-

10 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

dom or Animal Kingdom. The entities occur-
ring in the inorganic world are in the crystalline
form, or in the fragmental or altered condition;
while the bodies of living matter have their sub-
stance organized into a mechanism capable of
response to external and internal agencies, and
are hence called organisms.

A living organism exhibits five inherent activ-
ities—contractility, the power of movement,
which is better developed in animals, than in
plants; irritability, the power of responding to
stimulus in the wide sense, also more marked in
animals; nutrition or the utilization of food; res-
piration; and excretion, which is again greatest in
animals—hbesides the periodic activities of growth
and reproduction.

These manifestations of living matter are seen
even in the simplest of plants and animals, where
the individuals are microscopic in size and the
unit is contained in a single cell. However, liv-
ing matter is more commonly seen and compre-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 11

hended when many cells live together and form
the unit or individual that is in the plants and
animals as usually understood. All these forms
are said to have a body consisting of unit masses
or cells, which in the higher forms of plants run
into countless numbers. It is impossible for these
cells to remain the same, for as they increase in
number they become diversely related to the
outer world, to food, to one another, and so on.
Division of labor, consequent on diversity of con-
ditions, is thus established in the organism. In
some cells one kind of activity predominates, in
others a second, in still others a third, and this
division of labor is associated with that complica-
tion of structure which is called differentiation.
The functions, cellular structure, and develop-
ment in plants and animals are essentially alike,
and there is no absolute distinction between them.
But as these two groups are organisms differing
in their totality of organization and in the detail
of their functions, they have developed along two

12 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

independent trunk lines since early in the earth’s
history.

Besides the more or less constantly recurrent
activities or functions, there are the processes of
growth and reproduction. When income exceeds
expenditure in a young animal, growth goes on,
and the inherited qualities of the organism are
more and more perfectly developed. At the limit
of growth, when the animal has reached maturity,
it normally reproduces, that is to say, liberates
either parts of itself or special germ cells which
give rise to new individuals.

Protoplasm is the genuinely living matter, or
as Huxley expressed it in 1870, “it is the physical
basis of life.” Thomson states: “Protoplasm is a
marvelous form of matter in motion, or a subtle
kind of motion of which we can form only a
vague conception.”

All complex organisms are made up of organs
and these are composed of tissues that are con-
tractile, nervous, glandular, etc. In turn the

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 13

tissues are made up of cells, so that all organisms
have a cellular structure and a cellular origin.
The simplest organisms are unicellular and the
entire life process goes on in such single cells,
each a unit mass of living matter; as such all
plants and animals begin. In the great majority
of organsims, however, the body is made up of
hundreds upon hundreds of cells combined into
tissues and organs. A cell, therefore is a unit
mass of living matter, usually with a nucleus.

In a general way it may be said that the cells of
plants have firm, more or less thick walls enclos-
ing protoplasm, with granules of green coloring
matter. ‘This stiffness of wall structure isolates
the living substance, and consequently independ-
ence of action, that is, movement, in plants, as
compared with that in animals, is diminished.

By means of the green coloring matter, plants
have the power of producing their own nutritive
substances from certain constituents of the air
and water and from the salts contained in the

14 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

soil, and are thus able to exist independently,
while animals are dependent for their nourish-
ment, and so for their very existence on plants. |
Plants are therefore the primary magazines of
food.

Now that we know to a certain extent what
life is: namely the formation, growth and repro-
duction of cells, let us trace the progress of evo-
lution of animal life from the very beginning to
the age where man first came into existence.

By means of the science of Paleontology,
which deals with the life of past ages, as shown
by the remains or natural molds and imprints of
plants and animals, called fossils, which have been
preserved, enclosed in rocks, scientists have been
able to trace the evolution of life from the very
beginning. ‘The evolution of animal life is di-
vided into three eras: the first being the Paleo-
zoic or Ancient Life; the second the Mesozoic
or Medieval Life; the third the Cenozoic or Mod-
ern Life. And the Psychozoic or the Age of
Man.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 15

When the earth grew to about half of its pres-
ent size or about 4200 miles in diameter, the in-
organic matter deposited on the shores and bot-
toms of bodies of water, gradually came to life.
This animal life which consists entirely of inver-
tebrates, contains representatives of all the more
fundamental types, ranging from simple sponges
to complex forms of the Crustacea. The com-
mon animals are almost wholly trilobites and
brachiopods. It is thought that life first came
into being during the Archeozoic and early Pro-
terozoic eras, but as fossils of those eras are un-
known, it is safe to say that life came into exist-
ence in the Cambrian period of the early Paleo-
zoic eras in the form of marine faunas. Then
came the dominancy of the trilobites, which was
followed by the rise of shelled animals, and which
concludes the Cambrian period.

The word trilobites means three-lobe-like, and
has reference to the three longitudinal lobes seen
on the dorsal or upper side of most trilobites.

16 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

They were sexed animals, and their bodies were
made up of segments, many of which articulated
upon one another. These segments were divided
into three divisions. ‘The under, or ventral, side
with the limbs had a very thin outer shell, while
the carapace or upper shell was thin, and made
up of chitin, a nitrogenous substance which great-
ly resists chemical alteration and for this
reason trilobites are so often preserved as fossils.
Trilobites inhabited only marine and mainly in
shallow waters. Most of them were good swim-
mers, some crawled over the bottom, while others
lived partly buried in the muds. Many or most
of the trilobites could roll up their bodies for the
protection of the softer and more delicate parts
of the ventral side, thus presenting to the enemy
the hard thick carapace.

Shelled animals as a rule are generally divided
into two classes, the Brachiopoda and the Mol-
lusea.

The word Brachiopoda means arm-footed and

ee ee

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 17

was given to the group because of a false physio-
logical interpretation of the brachia or arms, for
the animals do not crawl on their arms as was
formerly supposed. The two more or less looped
or spirally rolled, fleshy, fringed arms, on the con-
trary, serve two functions: first, through move-
ments of the cirri and their cilia they attract cur-
rents of water into the shell, where the micro-
scopic food is extracted from it and fed into the
mouth; second, they serve for respiratory pur-
poses, that is, for the absorption of oxygen. All
Brachiopods are sexed, gregarious, marine ani-
mals, living from the strand-line down to the
great oceanic abyss, but their greatest abund-
ance is, however, in the shallow waters.

The Mollusca or Shell-Fish comprises such
animals as clams, oysters, snails and the pearly
nautilus. They are soft-bodied animals, often in-
habiting shells to protect themselves. Most of
them are very sluggish and have unsegmented
bodies, and as they are devoid of limbs for crawl-

18 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

ing or swimming, they move about by means of
the so-called foot, a creeping sole situated under-
neath the belly. Within the mantle, which is a
thin membrane that secretes the shell when such
is present, is the mantle cavity in which are the
gills, organs setting up currents of water out of
which is extracted not only the oxygen for res-
piration but also food for sustenance. The mouth
of molluses is furnished with a flexible chitinous
ribbon known as the radula, a sort of tongue,
usually provided with numerous minute, sharp
hard teeth and moved by special muscles for
breaking up the food. Most of the Mollusca in-
habit the shallow parts of seas and oceans but
some are found in the fresh waters of the land.
A word about the shells may be interesting. The
shells usually consist of three layers: an outer,
a very thin, brown, horny layer; a thick, middle,
limy layer referred to as the porcelanous layer
and an inner, generally thick prismatic layer.
Of the molluscs are the Lemellibranchia, the term

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 19

coming from lamella, meaning leaf, and branchia
meaning gills and was chosen because in these
molluscs the gills are leaf-like. This group con-
sists of all the headless and degenerate Mollusca,
such as mussels, clams, oysters, cockles and scal-
lops. The body is compressed from side to side
and always covered with two shells or valves, one
on the right side, the other on the left side. Their
habitat is mostly marine, living in the shallow
waters near the shore where the food is most
abundant. Then the Gastropoda which means
stomach-footed and has reference to the fact that
the animals creep about by the contraction of the
sole of the foot which lies on the ventral side.
This class includes such shelled forms as the lim-
pets, drills, periwinkles, whelks, conchs and
snails. They are most abundant in the shallow
seas where they crawl over the bottom; they are
far less varied in fresh waters and are represented
on land by the vegetarian, air-breathing or pul-
monate snails. They are in habit, as a rule her-

20 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

bivorous, sometimes carnivorous and scavengers.
The carnivorous forms known as drills bore holes
into their shelled victims, with the radula and the
aid of a weak secretion of sulphuric acid. The
head of most gastropods is usually distinctly
marked off from the rest of the body, and has a
pair of eyes and one or two pairs of sensory or-
gans or tentacles. Cephalopoda means head-
footed and is the most highly organized class of
the molluscs and includes such animals as the
nautilus, ammonites, octopus, cuttlefish and
squid. ‘They all are exclusively marine.

Having concluded the first period of the Early
Paleozoic era, we shall then pass into the second
or Ordovician period which comprises the rise of
nautilids, armored fishes, land plants and corals.

In the Lower Ordovician the first true grapto-
lites existed, also many gastropods, some of which
were large and thick-shelled. There was also a
variety of straight, bent and coiled nautilus, and
many trilobites. During the middle Ordovician

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 21

the waters swarmed with a vast variety of inver-
tebrate animals, chiefly of bryozoans, which were
exceedingly small animals resembling corals,
brachiopods, gastropods, cephalopods and trilo-
bites. It is thought that armored fishes came into
being during this period as an abundance of frag-
mentary vertebrate remains has been found which
are somewhat similar to the type seen often in
the late Silurian and Devonian times. The
faunas of the upper Ordovician were at first sim-
ilar to those of the Middle. But the Arctic in-
vasion introduced new types of animals. These
differences are seen more especially among the
bryozoans, brachiopods and corals. Before we
proceed with the Silurian period let us discuss the
animals with radial symmetry as among the lowly
organized invertebrates, which were the first
forms of life, there is a vast variety in which the
outer form and the arrangement of the organs are
not bilaterally planned as in other animals. The
study of these animals will therefore help us to

22 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

understand more thoroughly the evolution of
animal life.

Animals with radial symmetry are classified
into two divisions, the first being the more simply
formed or primitive one and which is the stock
(phylum) Cnidaria, or Coelenterata, the latter
implying that the animals have but one internal
cavity which serves both as a body cavity
(coelome) and as a digestive cavity or sac (en-
teron). All higher animals have two cavities, a
true body, one which may contain the internal
organs, such as the heart and lungs, and within
this another independent digestive cavity, such
as the stomach or intestine. These higher ani-
mals are known as coelomates. The coelenter-
ates are very simple animals in which appear the
beginnings of definite organs and as many of
them are flower-like they have been called zéo-
phites or plant animals.

The second division is the phylum Kchinoder-
mata which includes animals that have marked

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 23

superficial radial symmetry, but as they have the
true body cavity they are therefore coelomates.
Echinodermata are exclusively marine and are of
great diversity of external form.

The phylum Cnidaria includes two widely dif-
ferent kinds of individuals: the attached polyps
and the free individuals or medusae, which are
mostly known as swimming-bells or jellyfish. By
the way, Cnidaria comes from the Greek for net-
tle, because the majority of these animals have the
power of stinging. This stinging is done by a
multitude of very minute threads, each one of
which is shot out of a cell buried in the skin and
enters any soft body that comes in contact with
the animals. The body of these animals is a sac
with the closed end attached and the other free,
the widely distensible opening being the mouth.
Into it is passed the food, which is digested in a
more or less simply constructed cavity of the sac,
and through the same opening any indigestible
remainder is ejected. They feed on the smaller

24 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

animals, but when the individuals or polyps are
minute, their food consists of microscopic ani-
mals or plants. Around the mouth is situated
radially a number of hollow, finger-like tentacles
and much of this tentacular end, or even the en-
tire outer surface, is covered with innumerable
stinging cells.

The medusae or jellyfish are very soft, disc or
bell-shaped animals with the mouth and stomach
hanging from the under side of the bell, while
around its edges are the stinging cells.

The hydrozoa or hydroids (named after the
nine-headed dragon of Greek mythology because
of the many polyps) usually have chitinous ex-
ternal skeletons and a digestive cavity. which is
undivided and relatively simple in that the walls
of the sac are not folded or ridged, while the
mouth is rounded.

The graptolites were linearly arranged colonial
hydroids with thin chitinous tubular buds, one
end of which was fastened to a rod-like axis. The

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 25

polyps were arranged in a single linear series
(mongraptids) or there were two series back to
back against the axis or even four series with
the rod in the center. A variable number of
such colonies were fastened by rods to a float
or swimming-bell from which they hung and in
this way they were freely suspended in water and
drifted along with sea currents. There was also
another group of these animals known as den-
droids or net-like graptolites and these were of a
very different habit, being attached either to sea-
weed or to the sea bottom. These polyps did not
have the axial rod but were arranged on flexible,
more or less irregular branches united to one an-
other by cross-bars.

The Anthozoa or flower animals include the
sea anemones and corals. They are attached
polyps whose internal cavity has hanging down in
it a rudimentary, tubular, digestive gullet, open-
ing upward into an elongated mouth and below
into the true digestive cavity.

26 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

There are many more species of corals but
these illustrations I think will be sufficient. Be-
fore we proceed with the second division let us
make a brief résumé of corals. In the first place
they are all exclusively marine, that is living on
the shores, in shallow waters and in many in-
stances in deep waters. They feed on animals
but in cases where they are very minute they feed
on microscopic animals or plants. They multi-
ply either by sexual reproduction or by budding.
Sexual reproduction as a rule involves two
parents and the production of two kinds of germ
cells, the eggs and sperms. It is usually brought
about by the union of a sperm cell with an egg,
or less commonly by the development of the egg
without union with a sperm. Another method
of reproduction is by budding. The bud starts
as a protrusion of protoplasm in a small area of
the surface of a protozoan cell or as a localized
proliferation of cells. The protuberance grows
until it assumes the form and perhaps the size of

THE ORIGIN OF MAN Q7

the parent. It usually develops organs similar
to those of the parent and either becomes inde-
pendent of, or remains attached to the parent as
the case may be.

The second division of phylum Echinodermata
includes spiny-skinned animals, a name given be-
cause the outer surface of these animals is usually
more or less studded with spines and plates. The
parts of the body are usually arranged on the
plan of five divisions, five radii and the same
number of spaces between them. Along each
radius are usually two or more rows of soft, tube-
like processes terminating in sucking disks; these
are the tube-feet which are the chief means of
locomotion. However in forms that do not crawl
about these organs may be modified into feelers
and respiratory organs. The tube-feet are con-
nected with the water-vascular or ambulacral sys-
tem, a system of tubes consisting of a circular
canal extending around the inner side of the cen-
trally situated mouth, from which branch five

28 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

canals that run along the center of the arms or
radu, these five giving off, in turn, numerous
lateral branches which connect with the tube-
feet. The sea water has access to this system of
canals on the dorsal or upper side of the animal
through a large porous, sieve-like plate and the
animals can force the water into the tube-feet and
so elongate them into action. The Kchinoder-
mata are divided into two main classes on the
basis of their leading a free or sedentary life.
The great majority of starfishes have a more or
less large disk from which radiate at least five
arms. ‘They may be long and slender or indis-
tinct because of the enlarged interradial areas.
It is thought that starfishes first appeared in the
Ordovician but it has been found that there are
entire specimens in the fossils of Paleozoic rocks.
Echinids are, as a rule, extremely spiny, many
of the spines being movable on ball-and-socket
joints. They are generally dome-shaped, the
wall of the dome being made up in living forms

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 29

of twenty columns of closely adjoining plates ar-
ranged in pairs. Five pairs of these are the am-
bulacral columns which are perforated by tube-
feet and alternate with five other pairs which are
not perforated, the interambulacral columns.
The mouth is on the lower or flatter side and is
often provided with a powerful jaw of a very
complicated structure. At the top of the dome
or corona is the anal opening, around which are
arranged ten plates in one or two circles. ‘The
five large plates of the inner ring are the genitals
because each is pierced by an opening, the ter-
minus of the genital organs. ‘The five smaller
plates of the outer ring, situated at the termini of
the five pairs of ambulacral columns, are known
as the oculars because in them are located the so-
called eyes.

The crinids are Echinodermata which are usu-
ally gregarious in habit and fixed to the sea bot-
tom by a more or less long stalk, but there are,
however, many free forms that crawl or swim

30 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

around. They consist of three main parts: (1)
the calyx or body proper, (2) the arms, and (3)
the stalk. 'The calyx may be large or small and
is made up of a variable number of closely
adjoining plates, which are arranged in a very
definite manner in the different forms. From the
upper part of the calyx arise the arms or radii
which are made up of single or double columns
of plates and may have a regular series of small
armlets arising from their inner edges and known
as pinnulae. The ambulacra are situated along
the inner sides of the arms and pinnulae where
the microscopic food is captured and conveyed
to the mouth at the top of or within the calyx.
The anal aperture is also on the upper or ventral
surface of the calyx but is always more or less
eccentrically situated and often drawn out into
a long anal tube. The stalk consists of many su-
perimposed, disc-like, perforated pieces called
columnals, and is usually short.

The blastids are small, stalked, extinct Kchino-

Pe I er

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 31

dermata that arose early in the Ordovician time.
They are similar to crinids in their general con-
struction but they differ in that blastids have no
arms, only delicate armlets called brachioles.
These are situated at the sides of the five large
and conspicuous ambulacral areas on the sides of
the calyx and which are never seen in crinids.
During the early Silurian the invertebrates,
which were the corals, crinids, bryozoans, brachio-
pods and trilobites, still dominated the seas for as
yet the fishes were not at all prominent. The
Middle Silurian was very similar to the Lower.
In the Upper, fishes first made an appearance
but as they are very much like those of the De-
vonian, we will discuss them later. The scorpions
of the Silurian are the oldest known air-breathing
animals and probably had their origin in the
eurypterids of the sea. But were these scorpions
wholly adapted to dry land, or did they live along
the seashore between the tides? Their remains
are rarely found in marine deposits, but usually

32 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

in those of brackish water and as they are asso-
ciated with the eurypterids it would thus seem to
indicate a littorial habitat. As the scorpions are
carnivorous animals and as there was, at this time
no life except that of the invertebrates, on what
did they feed? But as spiders are closely related
to scorpions and as species of the former are
known to inhabit the sea coasts, it is safe to say
that scorpions did likewise, feeding on the small
invertebrates, among them trilobites and small
crustaceans.

As the fishes, because they were the first verte-
brates and therefore the ancestors of the verte-
brates of today, require a somewhat lengthy dis-
cussion, it will be advisable to make a careful
study of them now before we enter the Devonian
period, as they first became prominent during
the Upper Silurian. Fishes are veterbrates with-
out a movable neck and with a distinct and hinged
lower jaw. As they all, with a few exceptions,
pass their whole life in water, they all have gills

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 33

and fins. The gills are on each side of the head
and consist of delicate, hollow filaments in which
the blood circulates, and which are supported by
internal gill arches of either cartilage or bone.
Water is taken in through the mouth and passed
out over these breathing organs, where the blood
in the tubes extracts the free oxygen dissolved in
it. The external gill openings may remain open
and unprotected or may be covered over by a
hinged bony cover, the operculum. The mouth
may be on the under side of the head or at its for-
ward end, and is usually provided with teeth.
Also an air bladder is generally present and
serves as a hydrostatic organ or float, though in
certain forms it acts as a lung and assists the
gills in respiration. The skin is either soft and
naked, or more commonly, protected by the de-
velopment of spines, overlapping scales, or bony
plates known as scutes. The principal organ of
locomotion is the powerful and very flexible mus-
cular tail, which is assisted by the paired fins,

34 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

of which the forward set, known as the pectoral
limbs, lie just behind the gills, and the rear pair,
or pelvic limbs, are placed farther back. Fishes
also usually possess a variable number of un-
paired fins which are used mainly as balancing
organs; those on the back are called dorsal fins,
those on the under side between the anus and tail
are known as anal fins, and the tail represents a
caudal fin. All the fins are supported by skeletal
bars or rays, called fin rays, and are covered by
muscles and skin. Fishes do not have ears and
therefore there is no ear drum or tympanum (ear
cavity) and no tympanic membrane. The main
nerve trunk line lies on the upper or dorsal side
of the vertebrae (the main skeleton consists of
the vertebral column made up of joints known as
vertebrae) which extend from the brain case to
the tail, and it is more or less protected by a bony
arch known as the neural arch. Beneath the
vertebral column are situated the digestive and
reproductive organs. A few words about the

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 35

tails may be necessary. The tail presents three
general types. (1) The vertebral column may
be straight at its posterior end, continue in con-
stantly diminishing joints nearly to the end of
the animal, and there may be surrounded by a
symmetrical vertical tail fin. (2) In others, the
vertebral column bends upward toward the dor-
sal side and terminates with diminishing joints
in the upper lobe of the dorsal fin. (3) The
modern bony fishes also have a symmetric tail,
but, while the vertebral column here again bends
upward, it ends rather abruptly and from the
terminal joints the fin rays develop in such a
way as to form a symmetric tail. The first type
is the most primitive and was very common
among the Devonian fishes and is known as the
diphycercal or symmetrical tail. ‘The second
type is most common in the Paleozoic fishes and
is known as the heterocercal tail because of the
inequality of the lobes. While the third type is
most common among the modern fishes and is

36 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

known as the homocercal type because it is sym-
metric and has only two lobes.

In spite of the fact that fishes have bony skel-
etons and that they are known back to the Ordo-
vician, their early ancestors are still undiscovered.
Even among the vast horde of living forms and
their embryos their ancestry has not been deter-
mined, nor as yet has the missing link between the
invertebrates and the vertebrates been found.
The oldest fossil vertebrates are undoubted fishes,
seemingly of elasmobranch character and while
vertebrates of a lower type may yet be found it
seems as if natural conditions are against this
possibility, because the earliest vertebrates must
have been not only small but also without hard
parts. Among the unsegmented worms (nemer-
tians) the closest approach to the lowest type of
vertebrate ancestors in animals often spoken of
as half-vertebrates (Hemichordata) is found.
Stilll the structural gap between them is, how-
ever, great. The Hemichordata are worm-like

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 37

animals, with a distinct head and tail, and breathe
through the anterior region of the intestine (in-
testinal breathers). In this group in Balano-
glossus the rudiments of the future gills, the
breathing organs of fishes, are seen. Further-
more, the main nerve-cord is situated dorsally
and the intestinal tract ventrally, and these are
the fundamental structures around which the ver-
tebrate organization has been evolved.

Balanoglossus burrows in sand and mud in al-
most all seas. ‘The anterior end is formed of
the burrowing proboscis, beneath which on the
ventral side is the mouth, followed behind by the
collar, then the region of gill slits, and finally a
long, soft, slightly coiled portion. There is a
dorsal nerve-cord, often tubular, and like a typ-
ical spinal cord. The dorsal region of the
pharynx is respiratory and the water passes
through the gill slits, which open dorsally on the
exterior.

The next step is seen among the sea-squirts

38 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

(tunicates). These animals are greatly degen-
erate in adult life, due to their sedentary habit,
and their vertebrate affinity is only shown in
the earliest stages of growth. They are on border
line between the invertebrates and the verte-
brates. Their tiny larvae are free and active
animals and what is so important in these larvae
of the sea-squirts is that they have in addition to
the hemichordate structures a true notochord in
the tail, the notochord being the rudiment out of
which the vertebrated backbone of the higher
vertebrates has evolved. Sea-squirts are there-
fore spoken of as primitive chordates, that is, ver-
tebrate animals with the most primitive type of
backbone, which, however, is not bone, nor even
cartilage, but a gelatinous unsegmented material.
The spinal cord or trunk nerve lies above or dor-
sally to the notochord.

Lancelets represent the third step toward the
perfection of the vertebrates, but are an offshoot
from the main line of ancestors to the fishes.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 39

Nevertheless, they are a true prophecy of a fish
and in them the notochord is well developed as a
cylindrical rod of notochordal tissue. However,
it is not yet cartiliginous. From the lancelets to
the cyclostomes practically all of the interme-
diate steps are lost. Similarly, many steps are
lost between the cyclostomes and the true fishes.

All of the fishes and the higher vertebrates are
characterized by having articulating jaws, but
there are other vertebrates without jaws which
are lower in structure. These are known as Cy-
clostomata. They are without jaws and paired
limbs, and the skeleton is wholly cartilaginous,
except the horny teeth, which are set in the mouth
in circular and radiating rows. The gills, usually
seven in number are in pouches, the external and *
internal openings being small.

The seas after Middle Devonian time swarmed
with corals, brachiopods, and shellfish, and in gen-
eral the life was not very unlike that of the Si-
lurian. The coral were widespread, and there

40 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

were also many bryozoans, but the crinids were
far less abundant. The blastids and starfishes
were also abundant, likewise the trilobites, but
which were very greatly reduced in variety. The
fishes of this time were primitive in that they
did not have well developed internal skeletons
and in that they were more cartilaginous than
bony. 'The median fins were often continuous,
or a series of fins, extending along the dorsal and
ventral surfaces and meeting around the end of
the tail. ‘The vertebral column often extended
to the end of the tail, with the continuous fin all
around it, a type of tail (diphycercal), nearly
always present in the earliest stages of modern
fishes. Of vertebrates higher than the fishes it is
thought that there existed a salamander-like ani-
mal with a probable length of nearly three feet.

As we are about to enter the Late Paleozoic
era it will be best for us to make a brief résumé of
fishes, as fishes are very important in the evolu-
tion of animal life being the first vertebrates.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 41

The earliest known fishes are the ostracoderms
found in the Middle Ordovician. It is thought
that freshwater fishes existed in the Ordovician
and which evolved into the lung-fishes, animals
that were then more or less adapted to double
breathing, that is, had not only functional gills
as have all fishes, but in addition lungs, of the
Silurian and Devonian. ‘Therefore it appears
that the freshwater fishes of the Devonian con-
sisted of spinous sharks, ostracoderms, lung-
fishes and ganoids. Hence the most fundamental
evolution among the fishes had taken place pre-
vious to the Devonian, and the vista in the Ordo-
vician shows that the greater part of it had oc-
curred before the middle of that period. When
the seas spread over the land, the primitive fishes
occupied their widened habitat, and when the
continent emerged, some of them were probably
retained in the relic seas. This possibly explains
to some extent how fishes came to be found in
inland lakes and rivers. Thus caught in the relic

42 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

seas the ancestors of the spinous sharks were
bound to be gradually changed into that of fresh-
water. There was thus set up a struggle for ex-
istence which it is thought eventually resulted in
the production of air-breathing animals. The
food of the freshwater fishes of the Devonian
time must have been water plants and algae as it
is known that there did not exist any water-living
plants nor invertebrates of any kind except bi-
valves and myriapods.

There are many diverse methods in marine
animals for the extraction of oxygen from the
water but whatever the kind, it is always of the
same fundamental type, a localized organ or or-
gans having delicate canals with very thin mem-
branes in which the blood circulates, bringing the
red corpuscles into almost direct contact with the
surrounding water. ‘These red corpuscles have
decided affinity for oxygen which they extract
from the water and carry through the circulation
of the blood to all parts of the animal’s body.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 43

Nowhere in the sea has any animal an additional
organ for extracting oxygen directly from the
air, excepting in such stocks as are known to
have had land-living ancestors.

There is in all fishes above the sharks a struc-
ture known as the swimming bladder or air blad-
der, which is structurally a sac-like outgrowth,
single or paired, of the alimentary canal. There
are, however, two exceptions to this rule, first in
those fishes which because they inhabit swiftly
running waters, have developed quick darting
movements and have therefore lost the air blad-
der; and, second, in the flounders that lie upon
the bottom awaiting their prey. The principal
function of this structure is to give buoyancy to
the animals, and it is controlled by muscles in
such a way as to permit its possessor to remain
at any desired level in the water. The air blad-
der is the homologue of the lungs of the terres-
trial vertebrates and is utilized by the so-called
lung fishes as a respiratory organ supplementary

44 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

to the gills. Stagnation of the water and a loss
of free oxygen would bring the fishes to the sur-
face to gulp down the air, and such pouches if
supplied with blood-vessels would serve to aid in
aerating the blood. Animals originating and liv-
ing in permanent bodies of water and especially
in the ocean have no need to breathe the air and
therefore an alteration could have taken place
only where the water failed the animals. It is
thought that under the stimulus of climatic
changes the gill-breathing fishes first adapted
themselves to burrowing in the sand and thus
protected in water and mud holes there was for
a time moisture to pass over the gills. After
many failures in their efforts to gulp the air into
the pharynx, the lung-fishes gradually developed
and perfected, their first appearance being in the
late Silurian time.

In Waverlian times (the first division of the
Mississippian period) life was most diversified,
and the sea was filled with an abundance of crin-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 45

ids in great variety. Brachiopods, bryozoans and
cup corals were also abundant but none attained
the profusion of the crinids. Large sharks were
becoming more and more plentiful and among
cephalopods, the nautilids were no longer so pre-
valent as they were in earlier times. Their des-
cendants, the goniatites, were more common than
in the Devonian, and the trilobites were almost
gone. The carnivorous or aggressive life of the
Waverlian sea was therefore dominated by the
pavement-toothed sharks. Of land life little is
known other than plants and as I shall not discuss
plant life, I shall refer the reader, if he be inter-
ested in the evolution of plant life, to a text-book
on Historical Geology.

The marine life of the Tennesseian time differs
in many ways from that of the Waverlian, but as
it is largely a direct outgrowth of the latter it
naturally cannot vary greatly. The crinids were
no longer so diversified as in the preceding epoch,
but the two other groups of echinoderms were

46 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

far better developed. These were the blastids,
described elsewhere, and, though far less com-
mon, the sea-urchins known as Melonechinus.
Bryozoans were also characteristic of this epoch
as were likewise the pavement-toothed sharks but
which were rapidly dying out. There were many
kinds of cup corals and one type of compound
coral formed small reefs. ‘Toward the close of
this period there were many kinds of amphibians
but as yet we know nothing of them.

The Pennsylvanian period first saw the rise of
insects, but it is thought, however that they may
have arisen in the Devonian. They were as a
rule large in size and primitive in structure, and
led an amphibious life, their youngest or larval
stages being spent in the water. In general they
were not carnivorous animals but as they had
powerful chewing mouths it is thought that they
fed on plants and dead animal matter. They
had four straight wings, all alike which projected
sideways like those of the modern dragon flies

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 47

and could not be folded back over the abdomen
as in modern insects. The thorax had three seg-
ments, followed by a long and slender abdomen
in which the segments were alike, ending in two
long appendages connected with the breathing
organs, as in the living may flies. Their eyes
were compound and their antennae _ simple.
These primal, which are thought to have arisen
from the trilobites, gave rise to several transition-
al stocks, which in turn changed into the modern
insects, such as the dragon flies, cockroaches and
grasshoppers.

The scorpions and many forms of rather stout
spider-like animals, having a distinct cephalo-
thorax (head-trunk) and usually a large ab-
domen are found in this period. Thousand-legs
or Myriapoda are plentiful in this period but
there is no evidence of land snails until the Mid-
dle Pennsylvanian.

The Amphibia are most common in the Penn-
sylvanian and their origin goes back to at least

48 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

the Middle Devonian. The Reptilia, however,
appeared first in the Upper Pennsylvanian. The
evolution of the air-breathing vertebrate life of
the Carboniferous is the most important phase of
the whole progress of evolution, for at the close
of this period forms foreshadowing the chief
groups of modern times are found. The Am-
phibia, for the most part, were small creatures
related to the living salamanders and known as
branchiosaurs and microsaurs. They were rather
sluggish animals living about or in the water and
were more or less protected against their enemies
by an external bodily armor. Some of the micro-
saurs, however, lost the dermal armor completely
and became fleet of movement, which is best seen
in the structure of the limbs.

As to the invertebrate life of the Pennsyl-
vanian brachiopods are very common but toward
the close of this period their places were being
taken by the bivalves. While the brachiopods
were vanishing, the shelled cephalopods in the

a

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 49

goniatid and ammonid stocks were rapidly chang-
ing into a variety of forms. A few words might
here be said about the Protozoa whose individual
organization is contained in a single cell, and
which represent the first form of animal life.
These Protozoa were tiny, naked or shelled glob-
ules of streaming protoplasm, with a central,
more solid sphere known as the nucleus, which is
the seat of vital energy or life. They sometimes
live singly but more commonly in colonies.
During the Middle Paleozoic, after the lands
had been clothed by plants, a habitat capable of
sustaining animal life was thus established and
destined to be mastered by several stocks of
invertebrates and dominated by vertebrates.
Among the backboned animals, the first in-
habitants of the dry land were the Amphibia,
whose short reign lasted only through the
Devonian and Mississippian. ‘Then came the
Reptilia, which began their ascendancy in the
Pennsylvanian and ruled the lands and even the

50 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

seas until the close of the Mezozoic. ‘To under-
stand this evolution, it will be necessary to study
the organization of these two types of animals.
Amphibia differ from fishes in that they have
legs and not fins, each leg bearing fingers or toes.
Nearly all of them breathe by gills when very
young and may retain these organs throughout
life; lungs are however, nearly always present in
the adult. All Amphibia are cold-blooded ani-
mals and the name, which means living a double
life, was given them because many of them live
both on land and in fresh water. The sexes are
always separate and in the great majority of
species the small eggs are fertilized in the water
and develop there without further care from their
parents. ‘The development is therefore very
much the same as in fishes and very unlike that
of the higher vertebrates. The eggs of frogs and
toads for example, develop into small animals
commonly known as tadpoles or polywogs, with
a more or less large and rounded head and body

= ate tp ie ee ee

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 51

terminating in a long and very flexible tail, which
they wriggle in swimming, as do the fishes.
These tadpoles have gills which at first project
from the sides of the head, but are later covered
by an operculum. In about two months they at-
tain a stage which is the equivalent of the lung-
fishes. They then undergo a marked metamor-
phosis, the hind legs appearing first and later the
front pair, which are hidden under the opercu-
lum. The long tail shortens through internal ab-
sorption and the gills gradually are also absorbed
or drop off. The lungs then appear, and for a
time the young creatures are fully amphibious,
breathing water through their gills and extract-
ing the free oxygen from it, and also taking in air
through the lungs; but soon the small frogs or
toads take to the land and breathe air only.

All Amphibia in their youth are provided with
two or three pairs of external gills or internal
ones with external gill-clefts, soft feathery out-
growths situated at the back part of the head and

52 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

rich in blood vessels. In the salamanders of the
land and in all of the tailless Amphibia, the gills
disappear and adult respiration is carried on
wholly by lungs as in the higher vertebrates.
While the gills are present, the air passages to
the lungs through the nose do not open into the
mouth, but assume this position as soon as the
gills vanish and the lungs become functional.
The air is then taken in through the nasal open-
ings and in the frogs is forced into the lungs in
a swallowing manner. In none of the fishes are
there functional ears, though there are internal
ones; but in the amphibians, however, there are
distinct organs of hearing. In the frogs these
are best seen where the tympanic membrane of
the ear drum is a more or less large circular disc
embedded in the outer skin on the sides of the
head. The cavity behind the dise or drum con-
nects with the back part of the mouth by a tube
known as the Eustachian tube which is also pres-
ent in all of the higher vertebrates. The first

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 53

amphibians were known as Stegocephalia, a term
which means covered or mailed head and has ref-
ence to the fact that the upper surface of the
skull was roofed over by more or less thick dermal
bones which were often much sculptured. As the
reptilia developed out of the Stegocephalia, a
brief description will be necessary.

Some were small and active, with well devel-
oped walking legs and relatively short tails; some
were active swimmers, with long tails; others of
medium size were thickset and sluggish in habit;
while a few had the appearance of being gigantic
and almost legless. Their heads were usually
broad and flat, with very wide mouths almost the
full width of the skull, but in some forms the
heads were more or less elongated. ‘They lived
not only in fresh waters, but unlike their descend-
ants also in brackish ones. Most of them were
probably carnivorous and fed on shell-fish, worms
and other water invertebrates, but more particu-
larly on fishes, reptiles and small members of

54 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

their own tribe. In the great majority, the limbs
were well developed but short and stumpy, and
the hind limbs were nearly always longer and
heavier, and bore five toes on which the second
and third were usually the longest. Another im-
portant fact is that in the armor or roof bones
and those of the true skull was pierced not only
by the lateral orbits in which the paired eyes were
situated and by the pair of anterior nasal open-
ings, but by also a single small orifice through the
bone over the brain, and in it was situated a third
eye known as the pineal eye. We have thus seen
in all of the vertebrates so far discussed that
their habitat is either wholly in the water or at
least that the very small eggs are there laid and
fertilized externally, and that the young are also
borne and spend the days of their youth in this
element. Of the higher vertebrates they remove
themselves more and more from this habitat and
none are developed directly from the eggs. The
reptiles are oviparous, laying large eggs with a

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 55

more or less quantity of food (yolk) and these
eggs are fertilized internally by the males before
they are laid by the females upon the land where
they hatch by the warmth of the sun. This is
the most fundamental difference between the
lower vertebrates, the fishes and amphibians, and
the higher vertebrates, the reptiles, birds and
mammals.

The word reptile means crawling or creeping
and has reference to an animal that goes on its
belly like the snake, or moves with difficulty on
short sprawling legs like the alligator. All liv-
ing reptiles are cold-blooded like the fishes and
amphibians, and their skin is never soft, but al-
ways more or less hardened by horny or bony
material that occurs more often as scales than as
armor plate. Each animal has a pair of lungs
and the legs are either wholly absent or are mere
vestiges buried in the flesh and in such animals
locomotion is attained by wriggling movements
either over the ground or through the water.

56 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

Whenever legs are present, the fingers and toes
have claws, a feature which is very rare among
the Amphibia. Eyelids are present in many rep-
tiles and in most lizards, and in most lizards and
fossil reptiles the pineal eye is well developed.
The organs of smell and hearing are also well de-
veloped, but in the reptiles the vibrating, or tym-
panic membrane of the ear-drum is no longer ex-
ternal, as in frogs, but lies in a depression. All
have teeth except turtles and in living forms these
are usually pointed and often recurved to serve
for the holding of their prey, whereas in the
fossil forms they were adapted for cutting and
more rarely for the mastication of food. The
tongue in snakes and some lizards is slender and
protruded in a darting manner, while in other
reptiles it is flat and immovable being then at-
tached to the floor of the mouth. In some living
lizards and snakes the females are viviparous but
in the great majority of reptiles, however, the fe-
males are oviparous. As the eggs of reptiles de-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 57

velop on land they must be different from those
that hatch in the water. In the latter the em-
bryos have functional gills for the use in the
water, but in the reptiles a wholly different organ
was developed to provide the growing young with
the necessary oxygen. Reptile eggs are large
and contain a great deal of yolk on which the
embryo lives. At one pole of the egg les the
fertilized germinal vesicle which develops into
the embryo. There is formed during its earliest
growth at either end of the elongate embryo a
two-layered, crescent-shaped fold, called the am-
niotic fold, which arches over the embryo and
finally unites to cover it with a protective hood.
This latter is the amnion and between it and the
embryo there is a shallow cavity containing a
watery amniotic fluid, bathing and protecting the
outer surface of the embryo. While the amnion
is being formed a sac grows out from the hinder
end of the embryo. This sac, which is of the
greatest importance to the animal, is never seen

58 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

in fishes and amphibians, and is called the allan-
tois. This allantoic sac provides the embryo with
necessary oxygen, passing this and other gases
through the porous shell. Finally the embryo
breaks through the shell and begins to use its
lungs. A brief description of some of the early
reptiles might be helpful. The Cotylosauria
were the solid-skulled reptiles and as they were
the most primitive of the group, they retained
many of the ancestral stegocephalian character-
istics, but there was at least one pair of temporal
openings and the teeth were not placed in
grooves. The skull was armored with sculptured
plates, the pineal eye was large and a skin armor
was sometimes present. They (cotylosaurs)
were small and all were carnivorous though some
fed on plants. The Pelycosaurs were more active
with longer tails which were however not used for
swimming. ‘They were fiercely carnivorous and
in certain forms the teeth were enormous and in
others somewhat flattened. They, like the cotylo-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 59

saurs, lived from the late Pennsylvanian to the
late Triassic period. Theriodontia were reptiles
which lived only in South Africa during Permian
and Triassic times and are of great interest for
they indicate the probable group of reptiles that
gave rise to the lowest or egg-laying mammals.
We thus conclude the Paleozoic or ancient life
and shall now enter the Mesozoic or Medieval
life which is the age of reptiles.

The Mesozoic Reptilia were very diversified in
form and adaptation. Out of these reptiles early
in the Triassic arose the small and insignificant
reptilian and egg-laying mammals, and from an-
other stock came the reptilian birds, with an
abundance of teeth. Both stocks at the close of
the Mesozoic era began to modernize into suck-
ling mammals and toothless birds respectively.
Of the Paleozoic amphibians the stegocephalians
vanished with the Triassic; likewise the trilobites,
eurypterids, blastids, tetracorals and graptolites,
while the crinids, echinids, and brachiopods were

60 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

greatly modified. The bivalves and gastropods
were also undergoing a great change and the am-
monids of the Permian gave rise to a wonderful
evolution but were almost exterminated at the
close of this period. The lung-fishes of the Trias-
sic were greatly reduced in number and the dom-
inant forms were the ganoids with the bony fishes
advancing toward our present type.

The vertebrates of the land were now very
varied exhibiting much structural and adaptive
progression over their late Paleozoic ancestors.
Crocodile-like reptiles of the sprawling type and
other active forms were common, but the dino-
saurs, however, were the lords of the land and
they were present in great variety and in great
size. Some were herbivorous; others were car-
nivorous; some walked on all fours while others
walked occasionally or habitually on two legs,
after the manner of birds. We have seen how
freshwater vertebrates were forced to adapt
themselves to the land and now that the reptiles

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 61

were firmly established on the land we see them
going back again to the water, not only inter-
mittently to the lakes and rivers but permanently
to the seas and oceans where there was a more
certain food supply. We therefore see to what
a wonderful extent organisms can adapt them-
selves, for limbs have been changed from walking
legs to swimming paddles, and the egg-laying
method of rearing the young has been altered to
that in which the young are born alive. As to
the marine invertebrates the seas swarmed with
ammonids in great variety. The bivalves and
siphonate were in the ascendency though still
common in some places were as a rule very rare.
We shall now make a study of the dinosaurs, the
rulers of the Mesozoic, before entering the Juras-
sic period.

There were two main groups of dinosaurs, one
herbivorous and the other carnivorous. The car-
nivorous dinosaurs, to which the name Theropoda
has been given and which means beast-footed,

62 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

were active forms running upon their hind limbs
and with hands and feet armed with increasingly
powerful claws and jaws with slightly curved
dagger-like teeth, with which they relied for sus-
tenance and defense. The Theropoda verged
into three lines of descent two of which remained
carnivorous and terrestrial in habit, one being a
smaller, more agile race preying upon the hum-
bler reptiles and possibly upon the birds, the
other growing more and more ponderous as time
went on. One peculiar feature of their evolution
was the arrest of the development of the fore
limbs until they became so small as to be abso-
lutely useless. The third race which evolved from
the theropodan stock and which was named
Sauropoda (meaning reptile-footed) had a very
brief career. This group is represented by the
majestic Brontosaurus, a creature ponderous of
body and with a long tapering neck and tail.
The teeth being blunted and often somewhat
spoon shaped were so ill fitted for any type of

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 63

food that we do not know the precise nature of
the animal’s diet. It is thought however that
some plant that existed in great abundance at
that time formed the chief food supply and
which was not masticated but detached by the
claws and teeth and swallowed intact. None of
the Sauropoda were small, the Brontosaurus be-
ing of representative size. 'They inhabited the
sluggish waters of an imperfectly drained coun-
try, which supported their huge bulk and sup-
plied the plants upon which they fed. The other
great dinosaurian race was exclusively plant feed-
ing and bore within the mouth a wonderful bat-
tery of teeth. The teeth were few and simple at
first but becoming as time went on more numer-
ous until in Trachodon the dental battery con-
tained no fewer than two thousand teeth.

These predentate dinosaurs, as they were
called from the peculiar toothless bone that united
the two halves of the lower jaw, soon differen-
tiated into two distinct races, the unarmored bi-

64 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

peds and the armored quadrupeds, while from the
latter arose a third, the horned dinosaurs or Cera-
topsia. Of these three types, the unarmored Or-
nithopoda, or bird-footed dinosaurs depended for
defense largely upon fleetness of foot. As they
had a powerful compressed tail and their hands
had a webbed character, they had the swimming
powers of an alligator and still retained the abil-
ity to travel rapidly on land. When therefore
they were hard pressed by the carnivores they
could easily take to the water if they were unable
to escape the onslaught by speed ashore. But
all herbivorous dinosaurs were not of this de-
fenseless type. The second race, the Stegosauria,
or armored dinosaurs, had their bodies encased in
an almost impregnable armor. Later the armor
became more and more massive, the bony ele-
ments being welded into a broad protective shield
or carapace covering the creature’s back, while
the heavily armored tail was like a huge battle
mace. A most remarkable feature of Stego-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 65

saurus is perhaps its extremely small brain, the
estimated weight of which is but two and a half
ounces. ‘They were very stupid, depending for
defense upon the automatic control of the muscles
after the feeble glimmer of thought had given
the initial impulse. The final group of plant
feeders, the Ceratopsia or horned dinosaurs mark
the culmination of medieval time. These forms
had a huge head upon which were horns two,
three or five in number, borne upon the nose or
above the eyes. The neck was protected by a
wide spreading flange of massive bone with ser-
rate edges and invested in a close fitting covering
of a horny substance. The animals fought as a
rhinoceros might by charging and impaling its
enemy with a sweeping upward thrust of its head.
It is thought that the bird-footed dinosaurs and
the birds were derived from the same reptilian
stock, as the structure of the shoulders and hip
bones and the ankle joints are extraordinarily
like those of the birds, and that in the birds the

66 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

small grasping front limbs have been trans-
formed into wings. This evolution probably took
place earlier than the Upper Jurassic where rep-
tilian birds are known. The dinosaurs ances-
trally were doubtless water-loving quadrupeds,
but the increasing aridity of the climate com-
pelled them to travel rapidly and far in the search
of food and drink. And this was probably the
impelling force that raised these creatures from
the prone gait and posture and stimulated their
rapid evolution into the several types. As to ex-
tinction of this mighty race there are numerous
conjectures. One is that a severe change of cli-
mate with a diminution of the necessary heat
without which no reptilian race may thrive, or of
the moisture with an accompanying change of
vegetation was the cause. Another the inter-
necine warfare amongst the dinosaurs themselves
and another of the destructive slaughter, not of
adults but of the young, possibly while yet in the
ege, by some small bloodthirsty mammals. But

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 67

nevertheless we have seen the rise, slow culmina-
tion, and dramatic fall of one of the greatest na-
tions of antiquity.

In the Jurassic, insects began to feed on the
plants, but as yet few visited the inconspicuous
flowers for their small amounts of honey. There
were as yet no butterflies, but the caddis-flies,
scorpion-flies and beetles were abundant. Other
kinds of insects known from this time are cicadas,
grasshoppers, locusts, cockroaches, ants and ter-
mites. The reptiles in this period attained a
higher and more diversified development than in
the Triassic. ‘True lizards appeared with this
period and turtles were very abundant. One of
the most remarkable groups of Jurassic carnivor-
ous reptiles was that of the flying dragons or
pterosaurs (from the Greek words meaning
wing-lizard). They appeared late in the Triassic
and were characteristic and important in the
Jurassic. They ranged in size from that of a
crow to three feet across the wings. ‘The fore

68 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

limbs of these animals were modified into wings
and, like the bats of today, they actually flew.
Their heads were relatively large but lightly
constructed and set at right angles with the neck
asin birds. The legs, like those of the bats, were
small and weak, and the tail was very short in
some species and long in others. They were car-
nivorous animals, feeding in the main on fishes,
small reptiles and crustacea. Of birds only one
kind is known that appeared during this period.
This bird, about the size of a large pigeon, is
called Archoepteryx (from the Greek words
meaning ancient wing), and has many points of
resemblance to the reptiles, and many character-
istics which recur only in the embryos of modern
birds. The Ichthyosauria (Greek for fish-lizard)
were a highly characteristic group, for though
they appeared in the Triassic and continued into
the Comanchian, the Jurassic and especially the
Lower Jurassic was the time of their principal
expansion. The ichthyosaurs were entirely ma-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 69

rine in their habits and preyed upon fishes. Their
limbs were converted into swimming paddles, and
there was a dorsal fin and a large tail-fin, the lat-
ter being the principal organ of propulsion. The
muzzle was drawn out into an elongated slender
snout, armed with numerous teeth, which were
set in a continuous groove, instead of in separate
sockets. ‘The neck was short and the skin very
smooth. Another group of carnivorous reptiles
was that of the Plesiosauria (Greek for near-liz-
ard) which appeared in the Triassic and cul-
minated in the Jurassic and which formed a
curious contrast to the ichthyosaurs. 'The heads
of these were very small and the jaws were pro-
vided with large, sharp teeth, set in distinct sock-
ets. The neck was exceedingly long, slender,
and serpent-like, and was marked off distinctly
from the small, box-like body. ‘The swimming
paddles were much larger than in the ichthyo-
saurs and probably had more to do with locomo-
tion. Of all the Paleozoic fishes all were absent

70 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

in the Jurassic except the ganoids and lung-
fishes. ‘The former were now at their highest
development, not only in the fresh waters but in
the seas as well. The sharks of the seas had at-
tained their modern development, and in the
Jurassic the flat fishes known as rays made their
appearance.

The seas of this period were replete with in-
vertebrate life. Sponges were very common and
crinids were at times. In the Lower Jurassic
are found the largest forms of crinids that ever
lived. Likewise sea-urchins were common, but
not so the starfishes and brittle-stars, and those
that were present were of the modern type.
Brachiopods were still plentiful, also the gastro-
pods, and the seas were full of small and large
bivalves, but the most characteristic shell-fish of
the Jurassic were the ammonids, to be described
later. The crustaceans are represented by many
kinds of lobsters and the ancestors of the mod-
ern crabs also appeared during this period.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 71

As I have said, the Mesozoic seas were charac-
terized by an abundance of the shelled cephalo-
pods known as ammonids. These beautiful coiled
shells, relatives of the nautilids, were exceedingly
varied in size, shape, ornamentation and in the
character of their septa. ‘They exceeded the
Paleozoic nautilids as much in size as they did in
specific differentiation. They also appear to have
been more active animals and better swimmers
than the nautilids and therefore crawled less over
the bottom of the sea. The belief that they did
swim well is deduced from the nature of the very
thin shells, the wide distribution of some of the
species, and the small depth, or narrowness, of the
coiled cones. ‘The shells are somewhat like those
of the nautilids but they differ in a number of
respects. They are nearly always more ornate,
narrower or less deep, and are often distinctly
keeled along the center of the outer whorls. Also
the mouth of the shells often has lobed extensions
on the sides and there is also a median keel that

72 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

may be drawn out into a sharp point, the rostrum.
In nautilids the mouth of the shell is never closed
by an operculum, but in the goniatids and am-
monids it probably was closed in most forms by
a covering when the animal was at rest. But
these differences are, however, not so important
as is the nature of the septa. In the nautilids
these partitions in the chambered shell are simple
and more or less concave, while in the ammonids
they are simply only in the central part, and each
septum becomes more and more fluted or wavy
toward its junction with the outer shell. Late in
the Silurian, the deep-shelled nautilids gave rise
to small and narrow-shelled goniatids with spar-
ingly lobed septa. In most goniatids of the De-
vonian, the suture line of the lobes and saddles
terminates sharply, but in the Mississippian the
majority of the species not only have more lobes
and saddles, but these are nearly all rounded.
Thus we see a gradual change in the narrow-
shelled cephalopods, beginning as true nautilids,

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 13

and passing into various stocks of more or less
narrow-shelled goniatids that finally gave rise in
the Carboniferous to many lines of evolution
among the primitive ammonids. During the late
Permian and early Triassic the greatest variation
took place and at the close of the Triassic they
mostly disappeared, probably due to a colder cli-
mate and oceanic water. In the Jurassic there
was another rapid evolution out of two or three
stocks only and the height of development was
attained at this time. The waning of the am-
monids began in the Comanchian and their com-
plete extinction came at the close of the Creta-
ceous during the critical time of the Laramide
Revolution.

In addition to the ammonids, the rise of the
belemnites, the ancestors of the cuttle-fishes, took
place during the Mesozoic. The belemnids were
very active, highly carnivorous cephalopods,
which fed on fish, crabs and molluscs. They had
large and fully developed eyes, were devoid of

74 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

external shells, and because they had but two in-
ternal gill-plumes, the name Dibranchiata has
been given to them. ‘They had ten arms, pos-
sibly eight short and two long protrusible ones.
In the Mesozoic these arms were often provided
with bent chitinous hooks for holding, and more
rarely with holding suckers. They are all pro-
vided with an internal ink-sac containing sepia,
a brown-black fluid that mixes readily with
water; this the animals squirt in front of them
when in danger and then make their escape back-
ward away from the defensive screen of colored
water. Like the other cephalopods, they are pro-
vided with a siphon through which water is shot
forward thus propelling the animal forward.
They can also swim with the aid of their side
fins. |

In the Comanchian period, the reptiles prob-
ably attained the zenith of differentiation, when
the dinosaurs were present, not only in the great-
est variety, but in the greatest size as well. The

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 75

most characteristic ones were the Sauropoda de-
scribed above. The flesh eating dinosaurs of this
period were also large and terrible, but neither so
large nor so ferocious as those of the next period.
Also it is interesting to note that the oldest Amer-
ican frogs made their appearance during this
period, but as they were very small they appar-
ently were not of much significance in the animal
world of their time. The ammonids were still
plentiful though less so than in the Jurassic. In
the Comanchian they began to show a great loss
of vitality, in that only a few stocks arose, while
old ones were evolving toward a loss of characters
and an unwinding of the shell. The belemnids
were still abundant and flourishing. As to the
other invertebrate life of the sea, the sea urchins
were very varied and prolific in the warmer seas
while the heart urchins here and in the Cretaceous
attained their climax of evolution. Among the
bivalves, the ribbed oysters and the oyster-like
Gryphaeas were very abundant. In the equa-

76 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

torial waters there arose remarkably aberrant
stocks of bivalves, in which one valve was ce-
mented to some object, the shell growing upward
into a short or long, twisted, thick cone, while the
covering valve was either twisted or a thickened
and simple hood. These were the chamids and
rudistids, which also continued into the Creta-
ceous and then gave rise to the caprinids and
larger rudistids, shells that were veritable reef-
builders.

The life of the Cretaceous was the culmination
of the dinosaurs, pterosaurs and reptilian mam-
mals that began in the Triassic, the toothed birds
of Jurassic origin and the marine faunas of
Jurassic time and it was the final expression of
medieval life and out of it arose the modern
world of organisms. The invertebrate animals
of the Cretaceous were much like those of the
Comanchian with the difference that the am-
monids were making their last stand as I have
explained by the uncoiling and unnatural twist-

i i

THE ORIGIN OF MAN V7

ing of their shells. The belemnids were still
present but not so abundant as in the Jurassic.
The unionids or pearl shells were common, also
freshwater snails and land snails.

Of this period, the most common and charac-
teristic of the herbivorous dinosaurs were the
Ceratopsia, which were horned animals, some-
times twice as heavy as and larger than elephants.
Their name is derived from the Greek keras, a
horn, because they have on their heads two or
three large horns. Of all the large theropod dino-
saurs there were several kinds, but the most ter-
rible of all in size and weight and ferocity was the
form known as the King Tyrant Saurian (Ty-
rannosaurus rex) probably the mightiest flesh
eater of all time, carrying his head sixteen feet
above the ground and measuring forty feet along
the vertebral column. Flying reptiles or ptero-
saurs of early Cretaceous time are known in gi-
gantic species. They were without teeth and tail,
the head being more than three feet long, and

"18 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

narrow, while some forms had a long, rudder-like
crest extending backward from it two feet. They
soared over the sea and, diving like ospreys,
picked out of it the fishes on which they fed. The
seas of this period continued to be dominated by
reptiles. The ichthyosaurs were vanishing but as
to the plesiosaurs, they attained their culmination
during this period. The most interesting of the
newly appearing animals were the scaled reptiles
known as mosasaurs which were confined to the
Cretaceous. They were gigantic in size, car-
nivorous, marine lizards ranging in length up to
twenty-three feet, with their hmbs modified into
swimming paddles. In the early Cretaceous,
oceans began to spread over the continents and
it is therefore interesting to note that there was
great opportunity for expansive evolution, but
few new marine stocks appeared. But it was
a time of death instead to many characteristic
ones. In the late Cretaceous, ammonids, belem-
nids, rudistids and other stocks of molluscs dis-

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 719

appeared. Likewise there was a great reduction
among the reef corals, the replacing of the dom-
inant ganoids by the teleosts or bony fishes, and,
finally the complete dying out of the various
stocks of marine saurians. On the land the
dragons or pterodactyls vanished, likewise the
dinosaurs and birds with teeth. In the sea the
reptiles were displaced by the teleost fishes; on
the land they were overwhelmed by the rise of
the mammals; in the air they yielded to the more
finely organized birds, or, in other words, the
reptilian dominance was destroyed with the end
of the Mesozoic era, during which entire time
they had been the characteristic animals of the
sea and even more of the land. )
We now enter the third era, the Cenozoic, or
the time of modern life. The lands of this era
were dominated by mammals, and the seas and
oceans were not devoid of them. Mammals were
as characteristic of the Cenozoic as reptiles were
of the Mesozoic. They, however, had their origin

80 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

in the Triassic but at no time during the Meso-
zoic did these small animals take the lead among
organisms. Mammals, structurally the highest
group of animals, are warm-blooded vertebrates
with glands that secrete milk when the females
are nursing young. These glands which vary in
number from one to eleven pairs, are the mam-
mary glands or breasts, the structures from
which the class has taken its name, for mamma
means breasts. They are also present in males
but are rudimentary and non-functional.
Mammals are all more or less covered with
hair and these growths of the skin are as charac-
teristic of mammals as feathers are of birds. The
body cavity differs from that of all other verte-
brates in that it is completely divided into two
parts by a muscular membrane, the diaphragm,
which separates it into a thoracic cavity contain-
ing the heart and the lungs, and an abdominal
cavity containing the remaining viscera. There
are two sets of teeth in most mammals, the milk

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 81

dentition or temporary teeth which eventually
fall out, and the permanent teeth which succeed
them. The heart is four-chambered as in the
other class of warm-blooded animals, the birds,
and the course of the blood through it is the same
in both. For a better description of the heart and
the motion of blood in animals Harvey’s “On the
Motion of the Heart and the Blood in Animals”
is an excellent treatise. Most mammals have a
completely terrestrial habit while the seals, sea-
lions, sea-cows, whales and porpoises live in the
ocean. One order of wide distribution, the bats,
have developed the front limbs into wings, while
other stocks have lateral or body membranes be-
tween the limbs, and spreading these, glide from
tree to tree.

The Tertiary opens with an archaic indigenous
mammal fauna, a most curious, strange and bi-
zarre assemblage, which is an advanced and di-
versified fauna, the descendants of Mezozoic
mammals. Later appear the modern animals and

82 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

their introduction sounds the death knell of the
archaic forms, for one stock after another van-
ishes and most of them are gone before the close
of the Eocene. It is usually thought that the
modern mammals originated in Asia, although
we do not know for a certainty. A most striking
feature of the life of early Eocene time was the
appearance in considerable numbers of diminu-
tive horse-like forms, fleet-footed rhinoceroses,
tapirs, the first rummants and pig-like forms,
squirrel-like rodents, insectivores, carnivores,
lemurs, monkeys and possibly also marsupial
opossums. It was in other words the mammalian
life of a mountainous country, superior in foot
and tooth structure to the indigenous archaic
fauna, and of a higher intelligence. In the later
Eocene, the changes were largely toward greater
size, more muscular power, and the origination
of new indigenous forms. ‘There were many
hoofed animals and all were browsers. During
this period appeared tiny camels, true tapirs,

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 83

oreodonts (an extinct group of ruminating hogs
peculiar to America), giant pigs, armadillo-like
animals with leathery shields, and primitive dog-
like forms. Also there were many hoofed forms
such as the titanothers and the very characteristic
uintathers, mammals unlike anything living now,
and fleet-footed rhinoceroses. It was during the
Oligocene that mammals for the first time took
on a modern aspect, for here nearly all were pro-
gressive forms. In this period we get our first
knowledge of the varied mammalian life of the
plains and of grazing mammals. Rodents were
common, such as beavers, squirrels, pocket go-
phers, mice and hares. Among the ruminants,
peccaries were numerous, the entelodonts were of
large size, and the oreodonts, not unlike the pec-
caries and wild boars in appearance and size, were
exceedingly abundant, varied, and ran in great
herds. Among the carnivores, small dogs were
remarkably abundant and diversified. The last
of the archaic creodonts occurred here and as

84 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

they vanished their place was taken by dogs and
later by wolves and first sabre-tooth cats; true
cats, however, were not yet present. At the time
of the Miocene period there were large numbers
of horses, camels, ruminants and rodents with
high-crowned, persistently growing, grinding
teeth. There were also four-tusked, browsing,
long-faced mastodons, the short-legged rhinocer-
oses, the cats, and beavers. The most prominent
of the Miocene mammals were the horses, which
roamed the plains in great herds. All were
three-toed and at first all were still browsers, but
later in the Miocene the grazing type predomi-
nated. Likewise the camels were plentiful and
rhinoceroses were present in great variety, some
hornless, others with a single horn on the end of
the nose, and still others with an additional horn
on the forehead. Peccaries abounded, and the
last of the giant pigs, the entelodonts, were pres-
ent, one of them, in the Lower Pliocene, being
over six feet tall. The first true deer appeared

ES ee ee ee ee “ ;

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 85

in the Lower Miocene, and in addition there were
hornless deer and antlered deer-antelopes that
were slender and graceful little creatures.
Among the carnivores, the dog kinds were in
great variety, some small, others as large as the
largest bears. True cats appeared here for the
first time, and the sabre-toothed tigers were plen-
tiful though not large. There were also weasels,
martens, otters and raccoons. During the Plio-
cene, of the mastodons there were several species;
the horses in considerable variety remained three-
toed; llamas and the tallest giraffe-like camels
continued to live; rhinoceroses with and without
horns were present; sabre-toothed tigers and true
cats existed, some of them as large as a lion.
Strange to say that as it is assumed that all mam-
mals had their origin in Asia with the exception
of camels, which originated in the Upper Eocene
of North America and had a complete develop-
ment in the Tertiary, they are today found in
Asia, and likewise the llamas are at the present

86 ' THE ORIGIN OF MAN

time found in South America. The most striking
mammals of the Pleistocene in North America
were the three species of elephants and the one of
mastodon. The last named was most abundant in
forested regions and rarer in the plains country.
Of the elephants, the most interesting and widely
distributed was the Siberian woolly mammoth, an
animal of the cold climate and coming to North
America by way of Alaska. The mammoth also
migrated from Asia into Europe. The Colum-
bian elephant was closely related to the mam-
moth but being of taller stature. It lived during
the earlier half of the Pleistocene time in the
warmer portions of North America roaming over
the whole of the United States. The horses were
very numerous and also the peccaries, camels and
llamas. The caribou and modern moose were
likewise present while the stag-moose was a late
arrival. Among the carnivores the sabre-tooth
tiger was the most formidable. Of the rodents
the giant beaver was the most interesting and as

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 87

large as black bear. ‘The ground sloths were
represented by a large and widely spread form,
while the giant southern had a body as large as
that of an elephant, though shorter in limb. Of
ruminants related to the musk-ox they occurred
later in the period and of the bison there were
at least seven kinds.

We have thus seen how life originated and how
it has evolved through countless ages. We have
witnessed the formation of small animals from
inanimate inorganic matter. Animals that were
composed of only one cell, small microscopical
animals, whose period of activity, by this I mean
the time when they were the only form of animal
life on this earth, is known as the age of unicel-
lular life. Then came the dominancy of the trilo-
bites, the first invertebrate animals and which
were followed by the rise of shelled animals.
Following these came the rise of the nautilids,
armored fishes and corals. With the first air-
breathing animals, namely the scorpions, we have

88 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

become acquainted and also with the lung-fishes,
fishes that had lungs in addition to gills. When
the oceans spread over the continents and new
lands emerged we have seen how these lung-
fishes, due to inadequate amounts of free oxygen
in inland waters, and in which these lung-fishes
remained, gradually changed into amphibians,
animals that in addition to gills had lungs, and
that sometimes lived on land and at other times
in the waters. We, also at this time, made a
comprehensive study of fishes, the first verte-
brates and ancestors of our modern mammals.
The rise of echnoderms and sharks then occurred,
likewise the primitive reptiles and insects, the
descendants of the trilobites, the first invertebrate
animals. Then came the modern insects and am-
monites and first land vertebrates. ‘The dino-
saurs made their first appearance at this time and
continued to be the dominant animals for a long
time. Chief among which was the King Tyrant
Saurian, the mightiest flesh eater of all times.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 89

Following the dinosaurs the birds made their ap-
pearance, the oldest of which is known as the
Archaeopteryx. During the same time we see
the rise of the flying reptiles or pterosaurs. At
the close of this era the great reptiles began to
vanish but they were followed by the rise of the
archaic mammals which were however reptilian.
But they soon however vanished due to the rise
of the higher mammals. It being assumed that
the modern mammals had their origin in Asia
we have seen that by migration these animals
have spread all over the earth, and strange to
say that camels which originated in North Amer-
ica are today found in Asia and South America,
but it is not that point that I wish to be em-
phasized, but the fact that camels were the only
mammals that had their origin in a different
land, and why this is so, no one knows. We have
thus made a brief review of the evolution of
animal life and shall now discuss the origin and
evolution of man.

90 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

There are today two theories or beliefs, as to
the origin of man, which have been accepted by
the civilized world, namely the theological and
scientific. Let us state the theological theory
as follows: And God said, Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness; and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the
fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all
the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth. So God created man
in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them.

The scientific theory expounds the fact that
man descended from the animals, namely the
apes, and this theory is based on the fact that
the skeleton of man is identically the same to
that of a gorilla, excepting that the bones of the
gorilla are somewhat larger. Also, organ for
organ, they are similar. We therefore perceive
that these two theories differ greatly. What then
is to hinder us from forming a third theory?

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 91

Have we not the privilege of thinking as we wish?
We do not know and probably never will know
how man originated. More and more members
of the clergy are tending toward the scientific
theory, forsaking the belief that they have been
taught, for a belief that is based on fossil remains.
I myself believe the scientific theory as to the
origin and evolution of animal life, for that
theory is reasonable and has been proven. But
to the scientific theory as to the origin of man I
strenuously object for it is complete with unex-
plained statements and with the famous missing
link. Does this theory explain the origin of the
white race? It surely does not. The advocates
of this theory may claim that the white race des-
cended from the apes. But what of the black
race and the yellow race? Did they also come
from the apes? Such a thought is ridiculous as
well as impossible. They might claim that by
migration man became accustomed to different
climates and therefore turned white, black or

92 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

yellow as the case may be. But can a white man
today become black by living in a hot climate any
more than he could at that time. A black man
could become eventually white through an inter-
mixture of breeds but surely not by living in a
temperate climate. I do not wish to say that
man did not evolve from animals, but this point
I wish to be emphasized that the scientific theory
does not explain the origin of the white race. As
for the theological theory, the Bible has been
rewritten so many times that it has finally become
an inauthentic source of information on this
point. This theory also cannot explain the origin
of the black race. We have therefore two theo-
ries, one of which cannot explain the origin of
the white race, the other which cannot explain
the origin of the black race. Why can we not
then formulate a third theory which will explain
the origin of these different races, and which will
at first seem incredulous but will become more
and more plausible. We have seen how dead

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 93

inorganic matter came to life in the form of small
microscopical animals called animalcules. What
then is to prevent us from assuming that at the
close of the Cenozoic era man originated in a
similar manner, not in the form of animalcules
but in the form of small dwarfs. That dead mat-
ter came to life in the form of organisms which by
mutual attraction formed small dwarfs, the early
ancestors of man. Man is created in a some-
what similar manner today, not by dead matter
coming to life, but by organisms formed by the
union of a sperm and an egg of a male and fe-
male, so therefore this reasoning is not as incon-
ceivable as was first supposed. Furthermore this
conclusion is strengthened by the universal belief
that man was created from dust. If we then as-
sume this to be the case, these dwarfs by means
of evolution gradually grew to the size of about
five feet, three or four inches, the size of the pre-
historic man.

But were these dwarfs light or dark, in other

94 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

words what was their color? Were there differ-
ent races or were they all alike? Let us here use
our imagination to some extent, or better, let us
visualize what, to my mind, took place. Let us
paint a mental picture of the earth at the close
of the Cenozoic era, draped in a beautiful splen-
dor of plants and flowers, and inhabited by
many of our modern animals. We then gradu-
ally see life manifest itself, in the form of ani-
mals? No, in the form of small dwarfs, the an-
cestors of man. Are they all of the same race?
No, we see that in some parts of the earth, for
example in Africa, they are black, in America,
they are red, in Europe white and in Asia yellow.
But how can we account for such a happening?
We cannot form a theory simply on imagination.
We cannot have weird thoughts and ideas and
from such form a theory, by means of which we
can claim that such happenings actually took
place, just because no one can disprove it. De-
cidedly no! Such a theory would not be worth a

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 95

candle and would only make its author appear as
a ridiculous and incompatible fool. Have we
not seen how inanimate inorganic matter came to
life at the beginning of the Paleozoic era in the
form of trilobites? Were these trilobites the only
animals that came into existence at that time?
Of course not! Beside the trilobites there were
numerous other shelled animals. Then the ques-
tion arises, were these organisms that were
formed from this dead matter similar? Yes, in
this respect that all the animals at that time were
of one class, or in other words, they were all
shelled animals, but, there were different kinds
of shelled animals, such as trilobites, brachiopods,
gastropods and cephalopods. It therefore stands
to reason that these organisms that arose from
this dead matter were similar in that they all
formed shelled animals, but that they differed in
that they formed different species of shelled ani-
mals. If the kind reader agrees with me thus
far, we have then progressed splendidly. Now

96 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

to come back to our former assertion, which was
namely, that at the close of the Cenozoic era, life
again manifested itself, in that dead matter came
to life in the form of small dwarfs. Does this as-
sumption then appear incredulous when we have
seen how at the beginning of the Paleozoic era,
dead matter likewise came to life, not in the form
of dwarfs but in the form of shelled animals.
I then continued to state that these dwarfs were
not of the same color throughout the earth, that
in different parts of the land they were of a dif-
ferent color. Does this assumption then also ap-
pear incredible when we have seen that organ-
isms that formed shelled animals formed dif-
ferent kinds of shelled animals. Do you not
agree to that? Why can we not then assume that
organisms formed from inorganic matter, formed
dwarfs as organisms formed shelled animals, and
that these organisms formed different types, by
this I mean different colors, of dwarfs as organ-
isms formed different kinds of shelled animals.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 97

Does not this theory appear as acceptable as the
scientific theory, in which it is claimed that man
descended from the ape, and in which no mention
is made as to the color of man or as to the origin
of the other races? Is not this theory as accept-
able as the theological theory in which is claimed
that man descended from Adam and in which
no mention is made as to the origin of the other
races ¢

We have also seen how our modern mammals
have descended from small animals which had
their origin during the Cenozoic period—even as
far back as the Paleozoic, when the fishes arose,
the ancestors of our modern mammals. What
then is incredible in that modern man descended
from the dwarfs? Is there not as much possibility
in that we descended from those dwarfs as there is
in that a horse, for example, descended from
those fishes that had their origin in the Paleo-
zoic era? You might at first not agree with me
in that a horse descended from a fish, but were

98 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

not fishes the first vertebrates? Are not horses
vertebrates? You agree thus far? It therefore
follows that a horse must be the descendant of a
fish, not directly, I assure you, but indirectly, but
nevertheless it must be so. If that be the case
what is to prevent us from assuming that we are
the descendants of the dwarfs? Is the latter as-
sumption more preposterous than the first? No,
not in my light. Another question might arise,
namely: What right have I to assume that the

‘ancestor of modern man was a dwarf? Why do I

not assume that the ancestor of modern man was
a giant? Fossils have been found during research
work of prehistoric men, men that lived probably
many hundred years before the Stone Age.
These remains were found to measure approxi-
mately five feet, four inches. Then the average
height of man at that time was about five feet
four inches. The average height of man at the
present time is approximately five feet six inches.

So therefore these prehistoric men were smaller

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 7

than we are. We have also seen from our study
of animal evolution that certain animals that
had their origin as small animals, never grew to
a maximum height, and then gradually grew
smaller and smaller. They either became ex-
tinct before attaining such a height or else due to
their slow evolution are still in the process of at-
taining that height, for example the horse which
descended from an animal about the size of a
modern dog. So we therefore see that horses are
tending toward a greater height. A million years
from the present day they may be as large as an
elephant or they may become extinct within a
few years, the latter being the more likely, due to
the rapid advancement of motor vehicles. Like-
wise with man. We are gradually tending
toward a greater height, as seen from the remains
of these prehistoric men. Whether we will be-
come in the future, giants or eventually become
extinct, I of course cannot say. Either will oc-
cur, there is no doubt as to that, if we may judge

100 THE ORIGIN OF MAN

by past performances, and also such a happen-
ing will not occur probably within a million years.
Therefore such is my reason for assuming that
our earliest ancestors were dwarfs and not giants.
I have thereby formed my theory, which is not
due to a vague imagination, but which is based
on a comparison of the evolution of animal life
to the evolution of man, by the discovery of
fossil remains and a systematical reasoning.

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