Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-03-14

49, :: !; e:
learn that within tn
~MWY ~ sonian Institution hal
<SYE. lVSWnz> discovered near Tren
x2>A ton, N. j., remains o
~ animals with backbones
- more ancient by hun
dreds of thousands of years than have ever beer
found in any other part OF the world, as SrAi
Reporter is informed.
Up to the present time the paleontologists Of
Grea Britain have been Growing over those OF
America on the strength Of the superior an
nluity of their vertebrates. Experts in the
science Of the distant past on this side of the
water have reluctantly yielded the palm in THU
respect to Europe. But now the situation ii
reversed and there lie evidence to offer tina
vertebrate creatures existed in this very neigh
borhood ages before they have been proved to
have lived on the other side Of the world.
THEIR GREAT ANTIQUITY.
Some notion of the antiquity of these remains
may be had from the fact that the back-bones
ribs and other animal relics of which they are
composed once formed portions of the atomy
OF creatures that lived and swan in the earlier
part of the epoch when the coal was deposi ted
IN the beds where 1t now IL found anu mined
These fragments went to nuke up sharks tina,
navigated the seas of millions of years ago, OF
sheathed the bodies Of strange fishes that were
clad III armor plate, as turtles are today. Now
they are dug out from stratum that lies be-
meath thirty miles of sedimentary stuff de.
posted by water. Volcanic action has turned q
section of the earth's crust over upon its side
near Trenton; SO that what was in times
past at great depth is now exposed on the sur
face to the hammer of the geologist. 1t ID
partly through studying such accidental forma.
bpU ind
cestry.
THE ANCESTORS OF MANKIND.
What lends particular interest to these verte-
brates of the early conforming epoch is the
fact that they are the ancestors of mankind
1t Is from thom that we are all descended,
science says. though, of course they were not
our earliest progenitors. Going back of and
beyond them we find our more remote grandpar-
ents In marine worms. This SEEING unpleasant,
but it is a demonstrated fact
Originally, animate creation divided itself
into two branches-the animal and the vege-
table. The plants developed away from mental
organization. assuming the condition of sta
tionary parasites upon the earth. On the other
hand the animals cultivated powers of locOmo-
ton, so that they were able by moving about
TO control their own environment. The vege-
tables performed the labor of gathering from
the mineral kingdom food for the animals, SO
that the latter were enabled to devote all their
energies to the cultivation Of their powers and
the Improvements OF their species In this way
II mas come about that animals have steadily adj
vanced since the time of the beginning of
things, until man has been produced.
EVERYTHING FROM WORMS
From the worms of the seas came the origi-
nal vertebrates, which resembled worms in ap-
pearance, but had backbones Out of these
creatures came the lampreys, and from them
the sharks and other fishes. Fishes, You see,
swan III the ocean for ages before any land
animals existed. From them were deyeloped
the great salamanders of the later conforming
period, which were the forefathers of the
gigantic reptiles that ran creation during the
mesozoic epoch, after the mighty upheaval that
hited the Allegheny mountains out of the
water. That was the age Of reptiles. Some of
them walked on the land, while others swan in
the sea, and others still flew in the air There
were land species OF which individuals were
seventy feet in length, and they and others of
herbivorous habits were preyed upon by car
nivorous reptiles nearly as big-formidable
Hzard-like beasts with hugo teeth and tre-
mendous jumping powers.
The rirst mammals that existed in the world
were derived by descent from these giant rep
tiles, some of which, closely connected by fam
lily relationship with the line that produced
man, had enormous fins on their backs, or tall
splnes like m-sts, bearing yard arms like those
OF man-of-war, though for what purpose is
unknown. These earliest mammals were nearly
related to the Australian hedge hog and to that
extraordinary beast, the ducx-billed platypus,
which. though mammal, resembles both rep
tile and bird and actually hays eggs. From
them came the marsupials Of the opOssum type,
which produced in the course of time the ere.
odonts-eaters OF flesh and insects-that were
in form somewhere between opossums and
dogs. They have all disappeared, though some
rather remote relatives Of theirs are found Mt
cd
with long scientific names. The creodonts
evolved the raccoon-like lemurs, one genus of
which had teeth like those of great apes and
men.
THE ANCESTOR OF THE APE.
In fact, one species Of this lemur genus,
though no larger than q squirrel, had'a brain
bigger relatively to its size than that of any
other animal 1t, as science has demonstrated
beyond the possibility Of doubt. was the an
cestor OF the anthropoid apes which were in
turn the ancestors of man. The most man
like OF the anthropoid apes now surviving is
the chimpanzee, but the actual progenitor of
humankind was another species, at present ex-
tinct. which has not as yet been identified with
certainty.
Here there is gap in the human genealocy.
which science is partly able to close by going
backward from the other end. Though the
typical man-like ape is wanting the remains of
ape-like men-a whole race of them-have been
Iounu NJ Cannstadt near Stuttgardt, at Ne
anderthal near Wiesbaden, and at Liege, in
Belgium. These people had skulls Of inferior
development, massive jaws, no chins worth
mentioning and probably walked with their
legs bent.
THE LoNG-soUGHT MISSING LING.
The long-sought missing link was between
this spe-like man and the anthropoid ape. He
will be found some day; science is entirely con-
fdent Of that The only reason why he has
not been discovered already is that he is too
modern. Such Of his remains az have been
preserved are ut present under water Some
day by the recession OF the water the beds con-
tanning them will be uncovered and they will
be dug out. That is the way all animal re-
mains are secured. The animals which find
burial on land inevitably disappear, their bones
crnmbling and turning to dust BuS those
which find watery grave by being swept into
the lakes OF carried away by the rivers are apt to
be covered over with the mud of the bottoms
and SO kept intact as to their skeletons for
ages. OF the creatures which represented the
missing link many must have persisted in
Hoods. been drowned by falling into the water
or have died, their bodies being subsequently
hoated away. In a time that Is sure to come
centuries hence then jaw bones and other parts
viii turn up and the genealogy OF man will be
rendered complete.
In this manner Il has baen aacerka ;r.d ho~-