The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1861-04-18
THE GORIILA AND THE NEGRO


tion, London, on Tuesday, 10th of March, entered
upon exposition of the distinctive characters
between the Negro (or lowest variety of Human
Race) and the Gorilla, as exemplfed by the skel-
eton and brain, the diagrammatic illustrations of
which had been exhibited at N. du Chaillus's lee
ture on the preceding evening.
The osteologlcal distinctions were those which he
had pointed out in detail in his lecture at the
Royal Institution on Friday evening, February
4th 1859; and which received conirmatorv illus
rations in the rich series of specimens of skulls and
skeletons of both and of different ages of the
Gorilla, brought over by NJ. du Chaillu.
The cerebral distinctions were equally striking
and well marked The brain of the Gorilla attain
ing speedily, in accordance with the law of its
growth, the size conformable to its relations with
the organs OF sense and sensorial nerves termina-
ting in it, seems then to be stricken as it were by
abrogation of the power of further growth; the
capacity Of the Uranium in young animal with the
deciduous teeth, continues to be that, very near
ly that, of the adult when the skull has received
addition of about six times the amount of osse-
matter so disposed to give the requisite
force to the jaws and completing the british as
pect of the full-grown beast ready way to OBJ
tain the capacity of the cranial cavity is to fill that
cavity with millet-seed, to weigh the skull and
then deduct the weight of the empty skull from the
filled one. The range of capacity in the male Co
ra was thus found to befrom II or. DIR. to 10 o. !
dr.; whilst in the male Negroes skulls the range
of capacity was from 38 OF. dr.. to 81 o. dr.
Tiedemann records Ethiopian skull'with capaci-
ty of "a OF. dr. 33 gr. troy; the highest capacity in
an European skull being 81 o. dr.. 56 gr. troy
The weight of Negroes brain has been found to be
from ID. oz.to ID. OF. dr.troy; that of full
grown male Gorilla may be estimated at from
10 o. to II OF. troy. In regard to the principal
parts Of the brain, the difference of size of the
dulla oblongaa is rather in favor of the Gorilla:
the cerebelIum of the Gorilla is smaller the cere-
brum is much smaller than in the Negro.
The advocate for mans origin from transmu-
ted ape contends, that there is greater difference
of structure between the brains of Gorilla and of
Lemur than between those of a Gorilla and of
Negro; and suting his definitions to the statement
he aflirms that the higher apes possess the 'poste-
rior obe with the ''posterior horn of the lateral
ventrcle, and the hippocampus minor, or at least
the ''rudments" of these parts which have been
alleged to be peculiar to the human species.
1t is true that the higher Quadrumana have
more developed cerebrum than the lower kinds,
and that in his increase there is growth in that
direction in which the cerebrum of so pecu-
liarly predominates over the brain of all other
species. In that backward growth, as was shown
by Schroeder van der Kolk, in lS49, may be dis
cerned the base commencement of the out
growth of the parts which characterize the human
hemispheres, and that part which in its human de-
velopment becomes the hippocdnipus minor is
rightly named by the Dutch anatomist pes hippo-
cdmpi MINORS. But to speak of this, and of the
outward extension of the ventrice in which it lies
the ''rudments of the posterior cornu of the We
tricle OF of the hippocampus minor" shows mis-
conception of the term 'rudiment" in philosophi-
cal anatomy. Inc ''ruQltnent OF an organ the
representative of the totality of such organ in a
germinal or undeveloped state- such is the mar
whas tusk in the closed aveolus of the female the
mammary gland and appendage in the male NAM
nal, the pelvis in the whale, the swim-bladder in
the fish;-these vertible rudments of parts
which become fully developed, and withnormal func
tions, IN the other sex or in other animals; the
swim-bladder becoming the lung, for example, in
Batrachia and higher air-breathers.
Whatever be the true and deep significance of
the fact, there is gradation of cerebral develop.
ment from the lowest to the highest vertebrate
species but there are Interruptions in this grada-
ton, which are greatest between the cold biooded
and the warm-blooded Vertebrate, and between
the class of Birds and that of Mammals. In the
latter class, again, there occur marked and sngu-
lar strides, so to speak, in the development of the
brain.
The mGnOtremes and marsupials have no connect
ing commissural'' mass of fibres overarching
the lateral ventices of the brain: such mass makes
its appearance abruptly in the rat, shrew and
sotb, which in other respects nearest the Lyen-
cepbala or loose-brained group. In the discus
sicns which followed the reading of Prof. Ovens
Paper before the Lnnean Society, in 1857, when
the breaks in the series of perectional steps of GER
ebral structure in the mammalian class were prOpo-
sed grounds for the division of the class into pr
mary groups, it was objected that the thickenipg
by transverse hbres at the fore part of the fornx
in the marsupial brain a rudiment of the cor
puS callosm, and that therefore it was incorrect to
deny the existence Of that great commissure in
Marsupialia aud to predicate its presence in higher
Mamnalia as peculiar to- obecause fully developed in,
them. In like manner the beginning of the exten-
sion of the hind part of the ebral hemispheres
over the cerebeium, with a concomitant beginning
of an extension of the lateral ventrice and its inter-
nal convolutiop, ill that direction, as shown by
Vroik and Van der Kolk in the Orang's and Chin
panzees brains, adduced as invaidatiug the
grounds for the definition of the human race by
cerebral characters, as a group "Archenccphala,"
equivalent to the other mammalian groups re-
sDectivey characterized by cerebral structures
These objection were met amongst other arguments
by that to the application of the term
"rudiment," &C., above stated. The real question
being, whether the step in advance demonstrahle
in the mass and structure of the human brain, as
contrasted with that of the apes is not the same
in kind and degree as that which is demonstrable
as between the smooth brain of the rodent and the
marsupial. There is gradational series of i'm
proving cerebral structures from the Ornthc-
rhynchus to the CangaroO in the Lyencephaa; but
the interval difference between any two steps in
this series is very small compared with that which
separates the highest Lyencephae from the lowest
Lissencephae. So likewise in the quadrumanOus
series there is succession of small steps or i'm
provements ofcerebral structures by which the
parative anatomis advances from the bra in of the
Lemur to that of the Chimpanzee and Gorilla; but
| the interval or difference between any two steps in
TINS series Is truly small indeed, when compared
with that vast cerebral expansion and development
OF ne" pafts such as the posterior lobes overlap
| ping ana stretcning beyond the cerebelum, with
| their PoSierior coTnua and hippocampi minores,
| which have no existence in the brains of any lower
| mammalian animal.
VIRGINIA MoNEY.-One of our Wasbippton
| friends, who lucky as to have in his nos
session 81 900 of Virginia monev. being unable to
dispose of it at any rate in Washington, came
down to our city yesterday, to try the market
here He was told that if his money was bought
which was by no means probable-it would be at
| 10 per cent. discount. Not being able to stand
this, he invested his money-which was received
at par-in -four, which will prevent starvation in
his family from now to the end of his life.-Aler.
| Gazette.
In England, in the year 1888, it enacted that
'no lady or knights wife should have more than
one velvet or damask gown for the summer; that
all ladies should wear russet or camlet three days
in the week, under penalty of ten shillings per day
and that surveyor should examine the ladies
wardrobes." Just fancy such surveyor in these
days!
;, The Indiana papers speak most encouragingly o
the growing wheat crop in that State and express
confidence that the fruit crop will be a mos
abundant one
foreigners are now permitted to hold real ests tt