Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-12-18
THE MISSING LINK,
Professor virchow Says That It Is as Re-
 mote From Discovery as Ever.

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 arc 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 I laced 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 n monkey bring man into the world, nor q man produce monkey. All men having simian appearance are simply pathOlog- ical variants. It was generally believed few years ago that there yet existed 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 l1Aow 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 the Terra del Fuegians belong to the perfected types.
 Some races have the same skulls very small, of about the same volume as the microcephalous skulls. For example, the inhabitants of the Andaman islands and the Neddahs of Ceylon have been re garded as microcephalic. X more exact study has, however, shown n difference between them and the real microcephalic races. The head of an Andaman islander or of Neddah is very regular, only all its parts are a little smaller than among men of the ordinary races. Nanicephalic heads (dwarO, as call them, have none | of those characteristic anomalies that distinguish really microcephalic heads. A single race, that of the Orang-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 ascertaincd that certain isolated in | dividuals among Simaings are small and l have Curled hair. \ new expedition has been sent into that country to study the anthropology of the Orang-Cckai, from which have received a skull and a few locks of hair. Tho stock is really q black race with curly hair the brachyccpha- i lous head of which is distinguished by very moderate interior volume, but it does not offer the most tTifing sign of i bestial development.
 Thus we aro rcpulsed at every line of i the assault upon the human question. | All the researches undertaken with the aim of finding continuity in progressive 1 development have been without result. There exists no prOanthrOpos. no man. monkey. and tho ''connecting link re- mains a phantom.-Professor Rudolph | Nirchow's Lecture.