The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-04-06
JERSEYS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Older by Thousands Of Years Than
any Ever Before Discovered.
Fiom "a IEashinnton So.

J
in the United States to learn that within
the last few days the Smithsonian Institu-
ton has discovered near Trenton, n. j.,
remains Of animals with backboues more
ancient by hundreds OF thousands Of
years than have ever been found in any
other part Of the world, as Star reporter
Is informed.
Up to the present time the palaeontologists
OF Great Britain have been Growing over
those IN America on the strength of superior
antiquity OF their yertebrates. Experts in
the science OF the distant past of this side Of
the water have reluctantly Welded the
palm In this respect TO Europe. But now
the situation is reversed, ami there is
evidence to offer that vertebrate creatures
existed in this very neighborhood ages
before they have been proved 70 have lived
on the other side of the world.
Some notion Of the antiquity of these re>
mains may be had from the fact that the
oackbones, ribs and other animal relics of
winch they are composed once formed por-
lions OF the anatomy of creatures that lived
and swan in the earlier part of the epoch
when the coal was deposited in the beds
where 1t is now found and mined. These
fragments went TO make up sharks that
naVigated the seas of millions of years ago
or sheathed the bodies of strange fishes
NAAN SAaA AKA pldl9, as
are to-day. Now they are dug out
from stratum that lies beneath thlrty-flye
miles Of sedlmentary stuff deposited by
water. Volcanic action has turned a sec
tlon or 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
surface TO the hammer of the geologlst. 1t
IS partly through studying such accidental
formations that mankind has learned its
own ancestry.
What lends particular interest to these
verte rates of the early coal forming epoch
Is the fact that they are the ancestors of
mankind. It is from them that we are all
descended, science says, though, of course,
they were not our earliest progenitors. Co.
ing back OF and beyond them we find our
more remotegrandparents in marine worms
This seems unpleasant, but it is demon
strated fact,
Originally animate creation divided itself
! INTO TWO brancheS-the animal and the veg
etaole. The plan developed away from
mental organization, assuming the condi-
tlon OF stationary parasites upon the earth
Oh the other hand, the animals cultivated
powers of locomotion, 80 that they
were able by moving about to con-
ToI their own environment. The
| vegetables performed the labor of gather
Ing 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 improvement of
their species. In this way it has come
about that animals have steadily advanced
] since the time of the beginning Of things,
| until man has been produced.
| From the worms of the seas came the
| original vertebrates, which resembled
worms IL appearance, but had baokbones
Ont or these creatures came the lampreys,
| and from them the sharks and other fishes
Fishes, you see, swan in the ocean for ages
before any land animals existed. From
them were developed the great salamanders
OF the later conforming period. which
! were the forefathers of the gigantic rep
| tiles that ran creation during the meso-
zolc enoch. after the mighty upheaval
that lifted 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 few
in the air. There were land species of which
| individuals were seventy feet in length, and
they and others Of heTbivorous habits we're
proved upon by carnivorous reptiles nearly
| as big-formdable lizard~liks beasts with
huge teeth and tremendous jumping powers.
The first mammals that existed IN the
world were derived by descent from these
giant reptiles, some OF which, closely con.
| nected 10y family relationship with the line
| that produced man, had enormous fins on
their backs, or tall spines like masts. bear
| ing yardarms like those of man-of-war.
| though for what purpose is unknown.
These earliest mammals were nearly
related to the Australian hedgehog
and to that extraordinary beast, the
duck billed platypus, which, though a
mammal, resembles both reptile and
bird and actually lays eggs. From
them came the marsupials of the opossum
| type. which produced in the course Of time
the creodonts-eaters Of flesh and insects
that were in form somewhere between
| opossums and dogs They have all disap-
| peared, though some rathe: remote relatives
Of theirs are found at this day in Africa
and Madagascar, adorned with long scien-
| titic names. The creodonts evolved the
raccoon-like lemurs. one genus OF which had
teeth like those of great apes and men.
In fact, one species o. this lemur genus
| though no larger than a squirrel, had a
brain bigger relatively to its size than that
of any other animal. 1t, as science has
| demonstrated beyond the possibility of a
doubt, was the ancestor of the anthropoid
apes, which were III turn the ancestors of
man. The most manlike of the anthropoid
apes now surviving is the chimpanzee, but
the actual progenitor of humankind was
another species, at present extinct, which
has not as yet been identified with cer-
tainty.
Here there is gap in the human GENIAL
ogy, which science is partly able to close by
going back ward from the other end. Though
the typical man-like ape is wanting, the re-
mains Of ape-like-men-a whole race of
them-have been found at Canustadt, near
Suttgardt. at Neanderthal, near Wies
baden, and at Liege, in Belgium. These
people had skulls of inferior development,
massive jaws, no chins worth mentioning,
and probably walket with their legs bent.
The long-sought missing link was between
the ape-iike man and the anthropoid ape
He will be found some day; science is en-
tirely confident of that The only reason
why he has not been discovered already is
that be is 100 modern. Such OF his re-
mains as have been preserved are at pres
ent under water. Some day. by the recess
sion of the water, the beds containing them
will be uncovered, and they will be dug
out. That is the way all animal remains are
secured. The animals which find a burial
on land inevitably disappear, their bones
crumbling and turning to dust. But those
which find atery grave by beng swept
into the lakes or carried away by the rivers
are apt to be covered over with mud OF the
bottoms and 80 kept intact as to their
skeletons for ages. or the creatures which
represented the missing link many must
have persisted in foods, been drowned by
falling into the water, or have died, their
bodies being subsequently foated away. In
time that is sure 20 come centuries hence
their jawbones and other par will turn up
and the genealogy Of man will be rendered