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Show 4% TilE MONOGENISTS .AND PART III. IIAVE fossil human bones been found? The chapter entitled "Goolo()'y and Palroontology in connection with human Origins," eonLributed by Dr. URh r to ont· 'I l'Occding work, answers a:llirmativ ly · and woll-infonnod Cl'itics 282 have cone d d that his argument is su'Diciontly powerful to arrest n n hesitating ace I tan co of Cuvier's denial, now more than a quarter of a centnry old. 'l'hc subsequent dis ov ry of fo sil simire, oqnal1y uuforcso n by tho great naturalist, in Europe, Asia, aul America, has put a new face on the matter: "In fact," wrote Morton in 1851,283 "I consider geology to have already decided this question in tho affirmative." So docs Prof. Agassiz.284 N w, either fossil remains of man have boon discovered, or they have not. Arcbroology no longer permitting us to trammel human antiquity hy any chronological limits,- having, to speak outright, before my eyes noith r f< n,r of an imaginary date of "creation," nor of a hypotheti ·al "deluge"- I approach this inquiry with indifiorence as to the rosnlt, so long as errors may be xploded, or tmLh elicited: and, to l1eo·in, it strikes me that here again, as above argu d in rogard to ((species," much ink might have boon spared by prcviou ly sotLling the si(rnification of tho term "fossil." I know 28" tho alleged criteria by which really fossi lized uonos arc determined; and have insr octod, often, palroontological collcetious of all opoohas iu Paris, London, and at our Ph Had lphian Academy of Natural Sciences. On every f'idc I road and heard ubts expressed as to whether fossil man exists; yet, when opening standard geological works,200 I encounter, repeat dly, "fossil human skeleton" in tho same breath with "fossil monkeys;" and then ascertain elsewhere (ubi supra) that tho latter 28~ PAUL DE RllMUSAT, Revue des Dwx Jlfondcs, 1 Oct. 1804, p. 205 :-D'EtOUTHH, Butleti11 de lc1 Soci616 de G~ograpltie, Aun6o 1855, Jan. and Fob., p. 59 :-MAUl\Y, AlllmaJum Ji1ra119ais, 12 A out, 1854; p. 741; lt!OOHOT, .AUmoire 4ur des Instruments en Silex, &c., Amioua, Bvo, 185<.1. ; pp. 10, 20. :ui.l 'l''!fpes of Mankind, p. 826-" Morton's ined. MSS.": -HAMILTON SmTu, Nut. IIist. <~( tlte !Luman Speciea, pp. 99-102. 2M Op. cit., p. 852. 2811 Op. cit., p. 846. ~ M AN'nr,L, Petrifactions and their Teachings, British Museum, London, 12mo, 1851; pp. 4()4, 483 ;-Ibid., Wonders of Geology, London, 12mo, 6lh ed., 1848; I, pp. 86-90, 2G8-0 ;Ibid., Medals of Creati011, London, 12rno, 1844: pp. B!Jl-8:- MARTIN, Natural IfistonJ of ilfammijerous A11imals, .Alan a11d Jlfonkeys, London, Bvo, 1841; pp. 882-6, 851-7. Sm ('nAttL~:s ~v~.r,L (Principles of Geology, London, 8th ed., 1850; pp. 142, 734), however, makes dom· !.h~tmctlon~ between "Out\d!lloupo skeletons" nud "fossil moukoys." TilE POLYGENISTS. 497 arc found in Enropo back to tho tertiary dcposits,-one feels inclined to ask, how a single adjective comes to designate two osseous states denied to be identical? "II n'y plus que los Anglais, ou 1'6colc do Londros," says Bou6,287 "qui s'ecartcnt souvont du langago classique. Commc on jugc 1'6ducation d'un iodividu par son parlor, do memo on pout etro tcnte de prendre le style du g6ologue commc thcrmomct:.ro de son savoir." It is, indeed, through popular currency of a word which, used exoterically when talking with thoologcrs, imtlics that man is 1·ecent, j n the biblical son so; or, when esoterically employed among scientific men, moans that man is very ancient in ethnological, alluvial, botanical, and other sensos,-that the real question of human antiquity upon earth has boon obfuscated. Thus, every one knows that the presence of "animo.l matter, and all their pltosphate of lime" (Lyell) in the Guadaloupe skeletons at the British Museum, no less than in the Galerie d' Antltropologie of the Mus6um at Pads, combine with other data to invalidate their antiquity; but, on tho other hand, the presence of animal matter-even to "tho marrow itself-sometimes preserved in tho state of a iaLty substance, burning with a light flame" 200 - does not the more bring tho Irish fossil ellc (Elapltu.9 Mbernicus) within the limits of chronology, nor make tho human body, bones, and implements, found with this extinct quadruped, tho loss ancient. As a contcmporary 289 wiLh mastodons, mammoths, and carnivora of tho caves and ossuaries iu the ascending scale of time, and with rnan in tho closconuing, this Irish fossil stag links the older and the old stages of the mammiforous series, amid which mankind possess a place, uncertain as to epoch, but certain as to fact.200 Nor is this fossil llibernian stag (or ellc, which, Hamilton Smith says, lived as late as the 8th century), tho only instance of the extinction of" genera" and "species" since man has occupied our chiliautimcs- trans£orming planet. I refer not to Elepltas primigenius, or to rhinoceros ticlwrinus; neither to ursus or canis spelwus, nor to bo.~ p?·iscus, equus, and many other genora 21ll among which human remai ns occur: if their coctauoousness is rccognizcu by some, it is contested by others; so here tho cases may be left open: but such examples as ~T Voyage 06olog., I, p. 411) :-.1;\.rNSWORTII, Researches i11 Assyria, &o., London, Bvo, 1838; p. 12. 2811 Op. cit. :-MANTI;J.L's Addrm to the Archreological fnstiWte at Oxford, 181)0. 239 ALVRED MAunv, Des Ossem.ens llttmai118 et des Ouvrages de main d'IIommcs mfouis dam [M roclies et les couches de la terre, pottr servir a ~clairer les rapporta de l' ArcMologie et la OlolcgiB, Paris, 8vo, 1852; pp. 84 0. 290 Sec wh rtt lk Meigs hM quotccl from n Into pnpor by Mr. Denny (supra, p. 289). 2111 HAMtr,rON SMITH, op. cit., pp. 95-G. 32 |