The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1889-10-04
MANS ORIGINAL HOME.
4 Belief That Human Life Began In Ono Of
the Plateaus of Asia.

4 Belief That Human Life Began in Ono Of |
the Plateaus of Asia.
Eden. according to the prevalent |
idea of the teaching of the Bible, was
district of Armenia, watered by the
Tigris and Euphrates. The Biblical
narrative in fact mentions the Eu-
pirates as one of the rivers of Eden.
Undoubtedly, in the common belief,
Paradise was in Asia and not in Europe
or Africa A few ingenious persons.
it is true, have located mans birth
place in Europe or Africa, some hav-
ing the hardihood to establish it in
America. but those who have made
the most fanciful use of the scanty
evidence supplied by the second chap
ter of Genesis have been content usu-
ally to find the garden eastward in
Eden" within the limits of Asia.
Scientists. who hold a special view
respecting the mode of mans origin,
are approaching. it is pleasant to OBJ
serve, agreement with the general
view as to its place. In his new work
may be said to rank with Darwin as
the creator of the new view of the
origin of species, expresses the belief
that man originated in one of the
plateaus of Asia. Haeckel's view was
somewhat different. He held that
man, or his progenitor, originated in q
continent that once existed east Of
Africa and south of Asia, but which is
at present the bed of the Indian
Ocean. This continent, he supposed,
was connected on the west with NADIA
gascar and Africa and on the
north with Asia, and it was
by successive migratiOns westward
and northward that Africa and
Asia were peopled. Here in tropical
region. according to Haeckel, were
found the conditions which favored the
intellectual and physical development
of the progenitor of the human and
the monkey races. Wallace holds, on
the contrary, that man originated in
ASIA and il some part of it favored
with a temperate or sub-trOpical eli
mate. cit is probable" he says. "that
he began his existence on the open
plains of high plateaus of the temper
ate or sub tropical zone, where the
seed of Indigenous cereals and numer-
Gus herbivOra, rodents and game birds,
with fishes and mOllusks in the lakes
and rivers and seas, supplied him with
an abundance of varied food" Here
he would develop not the arboreal
structure of the monkey, fitted in
hands and feet for obtaining ripened
fruit from trees by elm bling, but the
structure that fitted him to get his liv-
ing while roaming through scanty
woods. Mr.. Wallace finds man related
to the anthropoid ape. 1t is not his
belief, of course. that he is descended
from the ape as we know him, but that
man and the anthropoid ape are de-
scended from a common ancestor. The
genealogical tree of man and the ape,
according to the evolutionist view, has
many branches, widely separated for
ages past, but if the converging lines
could be followed back far enough, a
point, it is believed, would ultimately
be reached where the son who was the
first ancestor of man was the brother
of the ancestor of the anthropoid ape.
The father of them both was, of
course, neither man nor ape. 1t was
his sons who. differing much in
character, force and progress
iveness, developed in them
selves and in succeeding gen.
erations the structure and qualities
that now distinguish man and the ape
from each other. TO Mr.. Wallace it
Is clear that man and the anthropoid
apes originated in the same region of
the earth. Where. then, have the
latter been found to be now existing,
or to have existed in former ages?
They have never existed, it appears. in
America. and did not exist in Africa
when it was connected with Madagas-
car and both were separated from
Asia. Madag ascar was separated from
Africa before the latter became Joined
with Asia by the Isthmus of Suez. The
animals of ancient Africa are therefore
to be sought in Madagascar. But
there are no traces of anthropoid apes
in Madagascar Those, therefore,
which now exist in Africa must have
come from Asia. There is proof that
man existed before the Isthmus of
Suez rose above the level of the sea,
and, supposing his distribution to have
been like that of his supposed relative,
he must have reached Africa by land
from Asia. The color of the China
man, intermediate between the black
of Africa and the white of Europe, Mr.
Wallace thinks, the original color of
man. The suns of Africa ebonized the
complexion of the African, while the
winters of Europe were blanching the
European. Further exploration of the
plateaus of Central Asia may bring to
light. Mr. Wallace suggests. the early
man, the missing link, whose persist
ent alibi. so to speak, is so damaging
to the case of the evolutionist.-B
more Sun.
do you get all the work you can
dO?" asked a gentleman of negro
whom he had hired tn do some Out-