The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1893-05-05
ss
THE S LINK.
Professor VirchOw Says hat 1t Is us Re-
mote From Discovery as Ever.

Professor virchow Says That 1t Is us Re-
mote From Discovery as Ever.
We know that man existed in the
quaternary epoch, that he lived through
long ages miserable and depressed, while
stone, wood. horn and bone constituted
the material of his arms and of his few
instruments. We are convinced that a
long interval separated the age of stone
from the age of metals and that only in
particular places was the use of stone
Immediately replaced by that of metals.
These are the data which now make part
Of the general knowledge acquired by
civilized nations since the foundation of
the congress, but further studies respect
ing the origin and the regions whence
the different branches of civilization have
sprung have advanced relatively but very
little. We seek in vain for the missing
link" connecting man with the monkey
or any other animal species.
There exists a definite barrier separat-
ing man from the animal which has not
yet been effaced-heredity, which trans
mits to children the faculties Of their
parents. We have never seen a monkey
bring a man into the world, nor a man
produce a monkey. All men having a
simian appearance are simply pathology
ical variants. 1t was generally believed
a few years ago that there yet existed a
few human races which still remained
in the primitive inferior condition Of
their organization. But all these races
have been objects Of minute investiga-
ton, and we know that they have an Or
ganization like ours, often indeed supe-
rior to that Of supposed higher races.
Thus the Eskimo head and the head Of
tho Terra d. Fuegians belong to the
perfected types.
Some races have the same skulls very
small, of about the same volume as TIL
microcephalous skulls. For example, the
inhabitants g tho Andaman islands and
the Veddahs of Ceylon have been re-
garded as microcephalic. A more cxac'
study has, ! viewer, shown IL difference
between thc,i and the real microcephalic
races. The head of an Andaman i;landeI
or of u Veddah is very regular, only ali
its parts arc a little smaller than among
men of the ordinary races. Nanicephalic
heads dwarf, as | call them, have none
of those characteristic anomalies that
distinguish really microcephalic heads.
~ single race, that Of the Oran@-Sima-
ings and the Orang-Cekai of the peninsula
of Malacca. still remains unstudied. The
single traveller who has penetrated into
the mountainous country inhabited by
them, the bold Russian Miklukho Maklai,
has ascertained that certain isolated in
dividuals among Simaings are small ana
have curled hair. A new expedition has
been sent into that country to study the
a~nthropology of the Orang-Cekai, from
which l have received a skull and a few
locks of hair. The stock is really a black
race with curly hair, the brachycepha-
lous head of which is distinguished by
very moderate interior volume, but it
does not offer the most trihing sign of
bestial development.
Thus we are repulsed at every line Of
the assault upon the human question.
All the researches undertaken with the
aim of finding continuity in progressive
development have been without result.
There exists no proanthropos, no man.
monkey, and the connecting link re-
mains a phantom Professor Rudolph
Virchow's Lecture.