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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wood Reade, a most reliable traveler, doubts if an adult has ever jet 

 been seen alive in its native haunts by a white man. The specimens 

 sent alive to Europe, and which have been claimed to be gorillas, have 

 almost always turned out to be chimpanzees in various stages of growth. 

 But the skulls and skins sent by Dr. Savage have been followed up by 

 complete skeletons and preparations sent by other travelers, and natu- 

 ralists have been able thus to study the appearance and structure of 

 the most formidable of the man-apes, which is credibly stated to in- 

 habit Central Africa from Sierra Leone in the north to Loango in the 

 south. Living in the dense forests of that region and avoiding the 

 presence of man, it is only with difficulty they are to be met with, 

 and, from the inefficiency of negro courage and weapons they are 

 rarely killed. We have thus no authentic portrait of the live adult 

 gorilla, but we give here (Fig. 1) a picture of the head of a young 

 male gorilla preserved in spirits in the collection of the Society of 

 Natural Sciences of Hamburg. 



In comparing the skeleton of the adult gorilla with that of man, we 

 find that the vertebral column offers slight and unimportant differences. 



The number of ribs is thirteen ; while in man it is 

 usually twelve, but occasionally also thirteen are 

 found. The curve of the back is slightly different 

 because the erect position is not always main- 

 tained, and to this circumstance I would also at- 

 tribute the difference in the shape of the pelvis. 

 In man the viscera have to be supported during 

 his usually erect position, and the bones of the 

 pelvic girdle are larger, giving space for the at- 

 tachment of the larger muscles of the spine and 

 thighs, which render the attitude possible without 

 inconvenient fatigue. But it is a fact that in a 

 child, before it learns to walk, the pelvis is as con- 

 tracted as in the apes. In its efforts to walk the 

 girdle is opened out, the sutures being flexible 

 durinor childhood. When we come to the skull 

 of the gorilla, we find a great difference in the 

 relative proportion of the different parts. The 

 bones of the face are large and the jaws project. 

 There is a variation in the different races of man 

 in this respect, as an examination of the skulls of 

 different races shows. The relative large size of 

 the jaws and lower parts of the face we see in the 

 negro races especially, as compared with our own, and to this type we 

 give the name prognathic. 



The man-apes show an excessive development of this type. At 

 first sight this large development of the lower face and jaws might dis- 

 tinguish the apes from man with great clearness, but its importance 



Fig. 2. Skeleton op Go- 

 rilla, and Male (o) and 

 Female {b) Skulls. 



