The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-06-08
ONLY MEN AND MONKEYS.


WILL WIEN ANIL Os
OF all Animals These Alone Fail to Swim
Naturally.
Man is almost the only animal that
has no instructive knowledge of swim
ming, which is regarded as remarka BILE
considering the vast period of time
throughout which this accomplishment
has been nearly essential to him. There
is every evidence that man has almost
always lived in proximity to water
Among the fuvial drift are found the
ancient stone implements and where
relics of human handiwork are dis
covered along with the remains of ex-
tinct animals it is almost always in
riverside caverns. Men have, there
fore, always been swimmers, just as
all savages are at the present day And
yet, notwithstanding this long expert
ence, mankind has not acquired an in
stinctive, hereditary knowledge OF
swimming. DIR. Louis Robinson con-
siders that the inability of man to
swim instinctively is proof of his de-
scent from apes. DIR. Robinson thus
explains the ability of animals to swim
as soon as they are thrown into the
water: A dog or horse is able to swim,
not because he has an intuitive knowl-
edge of the art of swimming, but be-
cause it so happens that his usual ter
restrial method of locomotion, when
kept up in the water, will keep him
afoat 1t is natural for an animal,
when under strong state of excite
ment to employ it's usual methods of
locomotion. For instance, if we pick
up a rabbit. and it is frightened, it
will Immediately begin to work its
legs as in the act of running. Or
if we hold a bird in our hands
it will flap its wings as in the act OF
flying. Now, an animal, when it finds
itself in the water for the first time, is
no doubt in an excited state of mind,
and it Immediately begins to employ
its ordinary methods of locomotion. 1t
SO happens that these are of the kind
to keep it afoat, and the animal thus
has at once the accomplishment of
swimming Animals like the cat and
donkey, which have decided antipa-
thy to water. nevertheless swim as
soon as they find themselves in that
element.
A man, too, when he finds himself in
the water without a knowledge of
swimming Immediately begins to put
forth his natural method of locomotion.
But it so happens that that method is
not of the kind to keep him afoat He
reverts to the arboreal habits of his an
cestors, the apes. He proceeds to climb.
This he does both with his arms and
legs. He gets his arms out of the water
and his head is immersed. He grasps
at floating twig with the instinct Of
his arboreal ancestor when he was
running upward, frightened by the ap-
partition of snake on the ground. Of
course any man knows that he ought
to keep his hands down when in the
water, but ninety-nine men out of
hundred who have not learned to swim
will, when they find themselves in
the water do precisely the opposite
of this. In spite of their knowl-
edge that such an action is fatal,
they revert as DIR. Robinson would
have us belle re, to the instinct of their
arboreal ancestors. There was, indeed,
a time when mems ancestors were
quadrupeds and ran away from an
enemy On INC BIOuuIi oA dAl AooiS' DoS
that was long ago, as long as the close
of the secondary epoch Since then
has intervened the vast period of his
arboreal existence, which anatomy and
geology show in the opinion of men of
science to have been much longer than
its existence as biped. But the ques-
ton at once occurs, are apes and mon
keys unable to swim? Upon this point
DIR. Robinson does not appear to have
very exhaustive information. Baboons
can swim, but balloons have a quad
rupedal mode of progression, even
when climbing tree. A mans gait
in mounting ladder is said to be
much like that of true arborean
animal than the gait of a baboon. AL
fred Russell Wallace says that South
African monkeys seldom or never cross
streams, rivers being the boundary
lines between allied species. DIR.
Robinson claims that there is a strong
presumption that the more bulky ones,
like the gorilla and the orang-outang,
are as helpless in the water as man.
1t is an interesting question and one
which could, we should suppose, be
very easily decided by experiment
V Times