The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-01


stated that in my public lectures make loose
| statements, which are not accurate in matters
! of fact; that allow myself to pc carried away
i by the Impulse of the moment; and that my
| statements lacked that precision which enti-
| ties to respect and confidence, And examples
| of such loose statements are quoted. Now,
will, that you may know know Win within w what limit
| a few of these statements. In some of
| the lectures / have delivered / have stated
that vertebrates have four limbs, and
! the last records of our science knows that
whales and that porpoises, ETC., have only two
limbs. This know is the statement of the text
books, but the textbooks are only compilations
second hand, of our knowledge; and if these
critics had looked at the original information
upon this matter-if they had consulted the work
OF Rapp upon the anatomy OF these animals, or
the work on fossil bones by Cuvier, or the most
extensive works of natural history they would
have known that rudimental exterior limbs
exist in all these animals, and that they only
are concealed by the skin. And have dissected
porpoises enough, and 1 have lately had an on
pOrtunity myself of dissecting other animals on
the Amazon, so that know from personal OBJ.
servatIOn that these inyestigations OF the anato-
mists | have quoted are correct when they say
that, beside the fully developed pair of limbs
which these animals have on the side of the
chest they have second rudimentary pair con-
cealed under the skin, which is imperfectly de-
velOped. Therefore | relterate my statement
that it is natural tendency in all Deytebrdtes to
develop four limbs, and that here and there only
Two are developed, and in some the second pair
Is concealed under the skin. The others have
been ascertained to possess pair of rudimental
limbs under the skin. So much for that one
statement (Applause.)
CoNTRovERTED POINTS.
The second is that affirmed that fishes have
lived (and long list of other errors is enume-
rated), that fishes had existed from the begin
ming OF creatiOI-as early as the other animals
while in reality they existed only from the time
OF the diuvian period. Now how is it with
in hn oil ofcta 20 Aho
served were perfect, it might be easy to dis.
unguish a crustacea, crab, or lobster from a
hsh. But in these Oldest beds of remains which
we have, and which have been interpreted by
some as hsh, and by others as crustacea, they
are only tragmentary spines such as we have in
the fins OF some hshes-for instan ce in the COM
mon dogfsh illustrating on the chart) the
dorsal lin has in its anterior parts SIN all
bony fin, or spine, which projects in this
way Gllustrating). On the other hand,
the horseshoe crab has upon the sides
OF the second sheath series of spines
which are somewhat alike in appearance to
these spines. (llustrating.) Now, spines of
this kind, resembling fins, are numerous in the
Oldest beds in which fossil remains have been
found, and the question is whether they are the
remains OF crustacea or the remains of fishes.
Some naturalists have affirmed that they are
the remains of CrustaCea. | have affirmed that
they are the remains of fishes. And l have
based my assertions upon this, the structure of
the spines OF the crustacea when examined mi
croscoplcally as to the characters of the sub
stances which forms the shield of the crustacea.
The spines OF fishes have the characteristic struc-
ture microscopically of bones, which is very
easily distinguished from every other structure
Now those spines of those oldest deposits have
the characteristic structure of bones, therefore
say again that these spines are the spnes of
nshes, and that am not wrong when l say that
fishes have existed as early as any other kind of
animals. (Applause.) But this is no place for a
controversy, and will now turn to the subject
OF this evenings lecture and consider with YOU
Question relation which pXistS
tween monkeys and man. That question is a
recent question.
THE QUESTION AT ISSUE RECENT ONE.
Ancient naturalists did not think of CON-
pairing men and monkeys any more, specid-
cally, than they compared men with other
animals. The works of Aristotle, in which we
have the earliest comparisons of this kind, two
thousand years ago, discuss the structure of
man as compared with animals, but he does
not find a special resemblance between mon
keys and man any more than between man and
the other vertebrates-the other warm-blooded
vertebrates and the reason why is obvious. In
those days the only monkeys known were
three-the pythecus as Aristotle calls him; the
common monkey of Northern Africa, which
was frequently, no doubt, brought to Greece,
as nowadays It is frequently brought to the
southern parts of Europe; the other was the
guenons, or the red monkey OF North Africa,
which is quite common on the coast of
Barbary, and which is long-tailed monkey
of reddish color, with pointed snout, some
what like the common monkeys we
obtain from South America, but different from
them in many respects in the peculiarities of its
face, of its teeth, and the like. Then the third
kind OF monkeys known to the anclents was the
baboon, of which representations are to be seen
in the ancient Egyptian monuments. Now,
neither of these monkeys has anything particu
larly human. The baboon has head not unlike
that of a bulldog, and was called by the ancients
canocephalus, or dpg.head, on account OF that
peculiar constitution of its head. But after the
passage to the East Indies around the Cape of
Good Hope had been discovered naturalsts be-
came acquainted with several kinds of monkeys
IRON the East Indies and from the west coast OF
Africa, which extend far above those known to
the ancients; and among them none are more
striking than the ourang-outang OF Borneo,
Java, and Sumatra, and the chimpanZee OF
Senegal and the east coast OF Guinea, Those Two
monkeys excited the curiosity of aatomists, and
called forth at once comparisons with man, IN
consequence OF the higher form of the head
and the peculiar development of the face OF
these apes. And from that time comparisons
between monkeys and man have been intro
duCed in all treatises on natural history. All OF
these comparisons have always had for their
objects to establish the differences which exist
between one as compared with the other. Re-
Gently, third kind of monkey closely allied at
the preceding, has been found in the lagOons
and on the more southern parts of West Africa,
and that species has been described under the
name OF gorilla.
THE GORILLA KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTs.
It is now ascertaned that that animal was
already known to the Greeks, though very i'm
perfectly, for an allusion is found in their lite
rature to a kind of small, hairy men observed
on the west coast OF Africa which could not
speak and which were very savage and untama-
bic. And now that the gorilla is known, 1t eau
not be doubted that the animal mentioned was
this kind of monkey. Now the question is what
are the structural relations Whlch exist between
these monkeys and the other monkeys, and all
mOnkpVR taken tOnetler and manklnQ.