POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



855 



by the roots of an old tree, or a crevice in a 

 convenient bank. It moves with tolerable 

 rapidity, and its pursuer must exercise con- 

 siderable quickness before he can secure 

 it. 



" To catch a perfect specimen of the 

 glass-snake is a very difficult business, for 

 when alarmed it has a remarkable habit of 

 contracting the muscles of its tail with such 

 exceeding force that the member snaps off 

 from the body at a slight touch, and some- 

 times will break into two or more pieces if 

 struck slightly with a switch, thus earning 

 for itself the appropriate title of glass- 

 snake. Our* common blind-worm . . . pos- 

 sesses a similar capacity, and often uses it 

 jn rather a perplexing fashion. Catesby re- 

 marks that this separation of the tail into 

 fragments is caused by the construction of 

 the joints, the muscles being articulated in 

 a singular manner quite through the verte- 

 brae. The tail is more than twice the length 

 of the body, from which it can only be dis- 

 tinguished by a rather close inspection. 

 The head of the glass-snake is small in 

 proportion to the body, rather pyramidal in 

 shape. Along each side of the body runs a 

 rather deep double groove. The coloring of 

 this creature is extremely variable." 



Antiquity of Speaking Man. — In con- 

 sidering the question of the antiquity of 

 speaking man, Mr. Horatio Hale avails him- 

 self of the theory which was suggested to 

 Professor de Mortillet by the structure of a 

 jaw-bone found in the cave of La Xaulette 

 in Belgium, that palaeolithic man, who in 

 this case could with more propriety be styled 

 the precursor of man, was speechless. The 

 jaw-bone in question is destitute of what is 

 called the " mental tubercle," or the " genial 

 tubercle," an appendage peculiar to man, 

 which is indispensable to that freedom of 

 the movements of the tongue that is essen- 

 tial to the possession of articulate language. 

 Such a speechless man as this one may have 

 been would be, as Professor Whitney re- 

 marks, " a being of undeveloped capacities, 

 having within him the seeds of everything 

 great and good, but seeds which only lan- 

 guage can fertilize and bring to fruit ; he is 

 potentially the lord of Nature, the image of 

 his Creator, but in present reality he is only 

 a more cunning brute among brutes." Hav- 



ing reached a certain level, it is impossible 

 for him to go above it. Hence, the dead 

 uniformity in the character of the relics of 

 man of this race. The next race, the race 

 of Cro-Magnon, offered in some respects the 

 strongest possible contrast to this one. It 

 possessed the genial tubercle, with good 

 cranial development and intellectual pow- 

 ers, the refinement of which is attested by 

 the pictures it has left engraved on pieces of 

 stone, ivory, and bone, and sculptures on 

 bone and ivory, the spirit of which would 

 be creditable to any artist. It is impossible 

 to suppose that people possessing such fac- 

 ulties and speech would remain long in an 

 uncivilized state if they were once placed 

 in a country where the climate and other 

 surroundings were favorable to the increase 

 of population and to improvement in the 

 arts of life. Various calculations of the age 

 at which this race flourished place it at from 

 four to eight thousand years ago, which is 

 fairly consistent with the accepted chronolo- 

 gy of the prehistoric life of the oldest his- 

 torical nations, and we thus have the early 

 origin and sudden outburst of civilization in 

 ancient Egypt and Chaldea accounted for. 

 If a pair of human beings, possessing the 

 gifts supposed, appeared in some region 

 where the climate and natural productions 

 were favorable, what time would be re- 

 quired for their descendants to become nu- 

 merous enough to found the early commu- 

 nities of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and 

 to spread into Europe and Eastern Asia? 

 " The question is easily answered. Suppose 

 the population to double only once in fifty 

 years, which is a very low estimate, it would 

 amount in twelve hundred years to about 

 forty million, and in fourteen hundred years 

 would be over six hundred million, or 

 nearly half the present population of the 

 globe. That less than a thousand years will 

 suffice to create a high civilization, the ex- 

 amples on our own continent, presented by 

 the Mexicans, the Mayas, the Muyscas, and 

 the Peruvians, amply prove. And that the 

 same space of time would be sufficient for 

 the development of the physical peculiarities 

 which characterize the various races of men, 

 by climatic and other influences, i3 made 

 clear by the evidence accumulated by Prich- 

 ard, De Quatrefages, Huxley, and other 

 careful and trustworthy investigators." 



