Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1895-09-18
ARIZONA JOURNAL-MINER
WEDNESDAY.....S SEPT. Is, 1895
CHANGES IN MAN.
The Primitive Man Had More Teeth and
 Was Otherwise Different.

The Primitive Man Had More Teeth and
 Was Otherwise Different.
 It. is a fact we are assured of by paleontologists and anthropologiSts that primeval man not only had four more teeth than men now have, but had fewer bones in the skull and fewer Holdings or convolutions of the brain. The skull, too, has changed according to environments and use from an oval to a globular shape or to a compromise of the two.
 The jaw has retreated as the front brain has protruded. The tearing tusk teeth have shortened up and are neatly and gently inclosed in the mouth.
 Ears, from being pointed and movable like horses ears, have be- come rounded and firmly fastened to the head. They are no longer the most important organ, as they were to the river driftmen to enable them to hear the approach of danger from all sides
 The nosrils, from being open and alert, have closed up to outside af- fairs to 8 great extent and serve mainly as conduits and as indicators of mental emotion. The eyes are shortening in their range of vision and adapting themselves to a studi- ous race. All the senses were once intensely more acute, and the tend ency now is steadily to lose more and more of their capability to gath CT in the world of sounds and sights except as these are correlated into logic-that is, we can no longer tell poisons by taste and track our enc mics by scent or distinguish dan gers by the rustles in the air.
 Occasionally a child is born with peculiar gifts of an organic sort and can move his ears freely or shake his scalp. He does not use this fac ulty, as it was originally designed, to shake off flies or dust Indeed it seems to be a useless reversion to generally disused type.
 Such changes in our general phys ical frame are startling and suggest i've, but no more important than the mental and moral changes that are as demonsrable. Our ancestors were indubitably carnivorous to the degree of cannibalism. The instinct for savage beasts and revelry, in- volving bloodthirsty disregard of human suffering, may turk in us yet
 The history Of the Stanley expedi- tion suggests that possibly savagery is latent in us in such degree that the absence of restraints of civiliza- tion may cause it suddenly to blaze with ferocity. Yet we certainly arc transformed to a deep abhorrence for customs that our forefathers lived up to without a quaim.
 Changes in customs are simpler than changes in organic structure, but both are easily possible. The rudimentary tail is still in our pos session, and have no doubt that if advantage could be found in its de- velopment we could get back to this appendage in its fullness. It would not be impossible 10 develop a race of men with tails if tails could be used. Certainly highly civilized races have lapsed in morality and intelligence to savage and animal conceptions of life. Such changes grow together and are interlinked.
 As the eye and the ear are less Oc- cupied in detecting the approach of dangerous foes they are moro ocou- pied in listening to the sorrows of our fellows. The pathos and sym pathy of a noble eye, the keen intel lectuality of the students nose, are part of the evolution. The organ changes and at the same time eX- changes purpose and power.
 Darwin says man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not by his own eXer- tions, to the very summit of the or ganio scale, and the fact that he has thus risen instead of having been aboriginally placed there may give him hope of still higher destiny in the future.-Boston Traveller.