AMERICAN ZOOLOGISTS AND EVOLUTION. 193 



would be simply enormous, unless, indeed, they were of common oc- 

 currence. Looking at these remains as at the remains of other mam- 

 mals, we must admit either that these low characters represent reten- 

 tion of ancestral peculiarities, or that they are cases of reversion. 

 In considering the Neanderthal skull, with its retreating frontal, 

 its enormous frontal crest, and other anthropoid characters, Huxley 

 is led to say that at most there is " demonsti'ated the existence of a 

 man whose skull may be said to revert somewhat toward the pithe- 

 coid type." 



To a mind unbiased by preconceived opinions, and frankly will- 

 ing to interpret the facts as they stand revealed by the study of these 

 ancient remains the world over, the evidence of man's lowly origin 

 seems, indeed, overwhelming. 



Looking at the whole question impartially, we find that among 

 recent men there are high types as well as low types, with a variation 

 so great as to have induced Agassiz, Morton, and others, to consider 

 them specific. And while, as Wyman asserts, no one race possesses 

 all the low characters, yet with the relatively long arms, the tendency 

 of the pelvis to depart from the normal proportion, and numerous 

 other facts of like significance, there are yet retained among some of 

 them more resemblances to the higher apes than can be found among 

 others. 



Prof. Cope, not content with tracing man back to some ape-like 

 progenitor, has, in a suggestive way, considered man's relations to 

 the Tertiary mammalia. In a communication to the Association at 

 Detroit, on this subject, he prefaced his paper by saying that in the 

 doctrine of evolution two propositions must be established : 1. That 

 a relation of orderly succession of structure exists, which corresponds 

 with a succession in time; 2. That the terms (species, genera, etc.) 

 of this succession actually display transitions or connections by in- 

 termediate forms, whether observed to arise in descent, or to be of 

 such varietal character as to admit of no other explanation of their 

 origin." He shows that the primary forms of mammalia are strongly 

 indicated in the structure of the feet, and also in the character of the 

 teeth. In recent land-mammals there are several types of foot to be 

 recognized, the many-toed plantigrade, the carnivorous, the ox, and 

 the horse types. Among the earlier types of the Eocene, he finds the 

 most generalized type in the Coryphodon of Owen (Bathmodon of 

 Cope). This creature was plantigrade, with a short calcaneum, and 

 *an imperfect hinge for the foot. From this generalized form he traces 

 a line of succession of intermediate forms to the horse on the one 

 hand, and the ox on the other. 



The Coryphodon was one of the earliest known mammals, while 



the horse and the ox preceded man by a single geological period. 



.Without entering into a technical description of the successive forms 



presented by Prof. Cope, we may quote his words wherein he shows 



vol. x. 13 



