POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



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the difference between the coldest and warm- 

 est months of the year was small, while the 

 difference between the temperature of day 

 and night was very great. Nor could we 

 escape these features, even though we as- 

 cended the loftiest mountains to be met 

 there. These conditions inevitably led to 

 anaemia and racial degeneracy. Malaria pre- 

 vailed throughout, even on the plateaus, and 

 some of those explorers who had been loud- 

 est in praising the climate as being thoroughly 

 well adapted to European constitutions had 

 fallen victims to its deleterious influences. 

 Europeans might certainly " live " in Africa 

 with occasional holidays in Europe, and they 

 could superintend native labor, but no local- 

 ity had been discovered as yet where it would 

 be advisable for European agriculturists and 

 colonists to settle down. The districts most 

 favorable to European settlers appeared to 

 him to be some of the hill stations and the 

 steppelike plateaus which occupied so large 

 an area in eastern Africa, and extended 

 southward into Cape Colony. Speaking of 

 the rainfall, Mr. Ravenstein said that it was 

 sufficient in most parts, but very irregular, 

 so that works of irrigation would be required 

 wherever agriculture on an extensive scale 

 was to be carried on. The humidity, which 

 in combination with great heat produced a 

 climate very trying to the strongest constitu- 

 tions, was, fortunately, not excessive over a 

 considerable portion of Africa, including all 

 the steppe lands. 



Hnman Characteristks in Apes. Human 

 characteristics, according to Dr. Lydekker in 

 Knowledge, are most largely developed in 

 the teeth and jaws of the young of the man- 

 like apes and of the gibbons at all ages, and 

 in the skull of the former class. Among other 

 features in which the manlike apes differ 

 from monkeys and resemble men are the ab- 

 sence of dilatable pouches in the cheeks for 

 the storage of food, the loss of the tail, and 

 the flattened instead of laterally compressed 

 form of the breastbone. The gibbons alone 

 retain the naked patches on the buttocks 

 characteristic of the monkeys, but only in 

 a much reduced condition. The gorilla and 

 chimpanzees further differ from the other 

 members of the group, and thereby resem- 

 ble man alone in the loss of the so-called 

 central bone of the wrist a bone occupying 



a nearly central position between the upper 

 and lower rows of small hones of which this 

 joint is composed. What may be the ob- 

 ject of the disappearance of this bone it is 

 not easy to say, but the fact that it is want- 

 ing in the two genera of apes just mentioned 

 is very significant of their close structural 

 affinity with man. In one respect the man- 

 like apes stand apart from both the human 

 and the monkey type, namely, in the great 

 relative length of the arms as compared with 

 the legs, the disproportion being most strong- 

 ly marked in the gibbous, which are actually 

 able to walk in the upright posture with their 

 bent knuckles touching the ground. The 

 present distribution of the anthropoid apes 

 clearly points to the existing species being 

 the last survivors of a group which was once 

 widely spread over the Old World, when 

 warmer climatic conditions prevailed over 

 what we now call the temperate regions. Of 

 the four existing genera of manlike apes 

 the chimpanzees {Anthropopithecus) are clear- 

 ly those which come nearest to man. The 

 chimpanzees and the gorilla alone resemble 

 man in having seventeen vertebrae between 

 the neck and the sacrum, and likewise in 

 the absence of the central bone in the wrist, 

 although they differ in the comparatively 

 unimportant feature of possessing an addi- 

 tional pair of ribs. The gibbons, while they 

 are much differentiated from man, are the 

 only apes which habitually walk in the up- 

 right position ; and although they frequently 

 aid themselves by applying the hands to the 

 ground, they often while walking clasp them 

 together at the back of the head. In addi- 

 tion to this peculiarity these creatures are 

 remarkable for the extreme agility of their 

 movements and their loud, unearthly cries. 

 The delicacy of their touch is well marked. 

 It is shown by the animals in the London 

 Zoological Gardens when they amuse them- 

 selves by playing with spiders, which they 

 allow to descend by spinning a thread at- 

 tached to a finger, then suddenly jerk them 

 back into their hands, and eat them with 

 evident relish. 



Exploration of the Upper Air. Among 

 the ways in which the upper air may be ex- 

 plored for the determination of its physical 

 and dynamical qualities. Prof. M. W. Har- 

 rington, chief of the Weather Bureau, men- 



