Indigenous Races of the Earth

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520 'l'll'F. MONOGENfS1'S AND unobjectionable, that om· Mississippi d lta, south of the latitude ot Baton Rouge, pertaining, of course, to tho recent period, bas occu­pied no less a time than J 20,000 years in its formation. 'l'ho parti­CLllat ·s of this computation I need not now Lt· ublo you with. "It is a very common occurrcnc that swc ping assertions arc made in palmontology, based upon negative data. '!'hat is, because crtain •lnfls s or genom of organic remains bavo not y t boon found in the old t· fossiliferous st1·ata, therefore they did not th n exist on tho iaco of tho earth or in its waters. I think this practice is prolific in false induction in science. Tho pr·osont tenants of our globe compt·iso pct·­haps 5_00,000 sp cic · of animals and plants. Tho organic species pr ccdmo- these, in form rages, were in all ages probably just about as numerous. al ontoloo-ists bav brought to light, from about 20 different and successive fossiliferous formations, about 20,000 species of remains, nino-tenths of which, as from the nature of tho case we might expect, are of marino and aquatic origin. Now, the plants and animals whose remains characterize these 20 formations while :flourishing in th ir respective ages, wore probably, in each of' tho 20 ea~os, as numerous in species as those <'Ontcmporarywith us. Avcr­agmg tho known fossils to tlrc £ J•mations, each of tho twenty would have 1000 Flpccics,.which is onl.y ~-5000: of what may fairly be sup­I osed to have existed. Aclnnttrng tlns rcasoniug as valid two or thr c in tructivo conclusions would flow from it. 1st. Tha~ doubt­less many sp cies of animals and pll111ts have heretofore oxi~:Jted as w ll ~sat present, that from their habitat and lrahit w ro rar Jy or over: ~~ kcly to be pro~orvod as organic remains. 2d. Thoro is no pro­babil. lty that geologists arc as yet acquainted with all, or even with a fi.Ct10th part of tho organic remains entombed in tho various forma­tions constituting what may be call d the rind of our globe. 3d. Assume at p rfcct random any one speci s, as fv?· instance an animal analogous t.o the O~?·ang-Outang, tlte probability is 500 times g1·eater that suclt an ammal exzsted at any geological age, also assumed at random than tltat !tis remains will, in our day, be found by geologists in the cor~ responding formations." 377 Fossil man, of some inferior o-racle, is now tho only tbino- wanting to c?~pl~to the palroontological series in Europe, in ordot ~t once to cxlub1t b1manos and qnadrumanos in parall 1 foRsil dev lopment . and thereby to plant the genera Simiadw and tho genus Homo on on~ and t~o same archroological platform. Let us hope ! We actually hold m our hands tho short end of the thread, through tho progna-m Annual Addrut read. bf .~r.~ re a1 e .•~r.. cw 0 r l cans Academy of Science&, Fob. 25th, 1856, b PROF •• J. L. RIDDELL, Umveratty of Louisiana, President of the Academy p 4 (Int . y lnted m my MS., at Philadelphia, 25th Jan. 1857.] , . . eloa- 'l'TTE POLYGF.NIS'l'S. 527 thous crania of inferior human rae s discovered, in tho humatile phase, over Belgium and Austria. Science now lacks bnt one, only one, little fact more to terminate for vor tho question-" have human fossil remains been ~ uncl ?" Again, I say, thoro is margin for hope! May be, that it is neither in Europe nor in America that fossil humauity is to be so1wht for. Pcrhar s, after all, tho malicious aphol'ism whispered by Mephis­topheles to Goethe in "Faust," tltat 1j lturnanity advances, it is spi­? ·ally-might some day turn out to be as true in geographical palro­ont logy as it is often in ethics, and oftener in inventions. Not a tenth part of Asia, not a twentieth part of Africa, has as yet been xplorcd by the geological pick-axe; the inlands of Born o, umatra, New Guinea, have not yet been trodden by tho white man's foot, far loss open to tho palroontologist. It is to scientific mining and to rail-road operations, conducted only by the most civiliz d races of the world, that, within the present quarter-century, tho earth b gins to yield up her dead, and display her riches in orgaHic remains. When the iron net..work, such as the "peace of Paris" alroa<ly Fliimn­lat s, is spread from tho Neva to tho Amour, from 'l'robizond to Cal­cutta, from Jerusalem to Aden, from Cape Town to Lake Uniam6si,:ne and from Algiers to tho S nogambia, perchance to tho Gahoon river, we shall doubtless possess many more fossil monkeys, and (why not?) a fossil man. Upon tho principle of representation in tho successive series of tho fauure of each zoological zone, it should be about Borneo tlutt we may expect to dig up fossil analogues of Orangs and Dyaks; ab ut Guinea and Loango those of '11roglodytes niger and of Gorilla-gina, no less than of some human precursors of present negro races. Antl yet, up to this day, ton yearA after their discovery, not a livi11g specimen m far less a fossil sample, owing to inaccessibility of th ir habitats, has boon procurable, even of the Gorilla, through French or other colonists at the Gaboon ! Here I may be allowed a digression,- not altogether irrelevant, bccaus~ it aids to clear up doubts as to tho earliest contact of tho Saraconic Arabs, after their conquest of Barbary in tho 7th century of our ora, with Negro nations; whom Arabian camels, then intro­duced ou a large scale into northern Africa, first enabled tho 878 Pll'fl!lRMANN, Jlfittlleilungen aus Justus Perthts' GeogrupMscher Anstall, &c., Gotha, 4to, 1856; pp. 18-82; nnd his" Skizze oiuor Karto * * * des See's von Uniamesi,-''-whioh lo.Ler explorers seem to doubt. 879 Is. G EOl"FitOY 8'1'. lilLAIIlll n.nd DunEAU DE LA MALLE, in Annalea des Sciences Naturclles, PlLl'iB, III• s6rie, XVI, pp. 154-217.