644 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY, 



On the one hand, we had the evidence, in the remains of man and 

 his workmanship, associated with all the characteristic animal remains 

 referred to, that man — man, thinking and capable of applying his con- 

 ceptions to fabrications for his uses — was contemporary with the cave 

 animals, the tichorhine rhinoceros, and the mammoth ; and, if the evi- 

 dence is perfectly authentic (and no doubt has been expressed), that 

 he was even prone to embody his conceptions in rude pictorial art. 

 Thus, man had for some time been generally acknowledged to have 

 existed at least as far back as can be claimed for the man of Mentone. 



On the other hand, the skeletal remains of the man of that period 

 were altogether too fragmentary to allow of any definite opinion as to 

 his structural characteristics. The data for such opinion have now 

 been rendered available by M. Riviere's discovery ; and, although he 

 has not yet published positive details, the negative results afforded us 

 indicate that the fossil man was, in all respects, a typical man, perhaps 

 even differing less from his successors in Europe than do some other 

 existing races. It is at least very certain that he had no decided ape- 

 like characteristics. Even more ! He was man to excess ! The pro- 

 portions of the fore limb to the hind, and of the median and distal por- 

 tions of each to the proximal, so far from proving a condition inter- 

 mediate between man and the apes, or embryonic or juvenile human- 

 ity, or even affinity to the negro, indicate that he was more unlike the 

 apes in such respects than are some of the existing races ; nor is this 

 evidence rebutted by any characteristics of the skull, the dentition or 

 otherwise, so far as the testimony allows us to judge. 



So much wild speculation is rife, and enthusiastic anthropologists 

 are so much carried away by a vague idea of some startling discovery 

 that may be at any moment made, that a counter-irritant may not be 

 misplaced ; and, where so much prophecy has been indulged, a little 

 from ourselves may be pardoned. 



With the evidences of the existence of man specialized as much as 

 he is now, at a period so early as he is known to have lived, it is scarce- 

 ly too rash to assert that it is useless to expect to find any evidence of 

 his simian origin in any bones exhumed in the later formations in 

 Europe, and much less in America. And, in view of the negative re- 

 sults of the extensive paleontological explorations made in Europe, it 

 is almost as unlikely that any such remains will ever be found, even 

 in the anterior formations. The anxious may therefore contemplate 

 with a happy serenity the explorations made, for every skeleton found, 

 in its perfect, man-like features, will not only disprove the existence 

 of the dreaded intermediate link, but will add to the value of the 

 negative evidence against the existence of such a link — that is, in 

 Europe or America. And, on theoretical considerations, this is what 

 might be expected. 



But it would be altogether too rash to predict that, because no 

 such evidence will, in all probability, be afforded by Europe or Amer- 



