4: VERTEBRATA. 



No. 3. [4] Homo sapiens. 



Skeleton (cast), found on the nortli eastern 

 coast of the main-land of Guadaloupe, in a bed 

 of modern concretionary limestone. The rock 

 contains the detritus of shells and corals of the 

 same species as now inhabit the neighboring sea 

 (some of the coral still retaining the same red 

 color now seen in reefs of living coral which sur- 

 round the Island), land shells, fragments of pot- 

 tery, stone arrowheads, carved wooden orna- 

 ments, and detached liuman bones. The parts 

 preserved in this specimen are the spinal column, 

 many of the ribs, the left arm, pelvis, thighs and 

 legs. They are the remains of a Carib, who died 

 in battle some two hundred years ago. These 

 bones still contain some animal matter, and the 

 whole of their phosphate of lime. The original 

 is in the British Museum; the skull is in the 

 Medical College of Charleston, S. C. 



Size, 4 ft. 7 in X 2 ft. 



SUBORDER QUADRUMANA. 



These mammals, the most anthropoid of brutes, are characterized 

 by prehensile feet as well as hands. In all the genera above the 

 Lemurs of Madagascar and the American Monkeys, the same num- 

 ber, and kinds of teeth are present as in Man — the deviation being 

 the disproportionate size of the canines and the concomitant break 

 (diastema) in the dental series. The skulls of the great Apes are 

 distinguished by prominent superorbital ridges. 



Cuvier held that the Quadrumana scarcely, if at all, preceded 

 Man in order of creation. Lyell was the first (1830) to express a 

 doubt of the total absence of fossil anthropomorphous tribes. In 

 1839 fragments of the lower jaw of a lemuroid monkey (Cwno- 

 pithecus) were discovered by Owen in the Eocene, London Clay, on 

 banks of the Deben, England. Since then, remains of true monkeys 

 have been found in the Miocene strata of Southern France, and in 

 the Pliocene of France, Greece, Brazil, and the Sewalik Hills, India. 

 Lemurs have been discovered fossil in the Eocene lake-beds of 

 Western America; and in the Miocene of Nebraska, at least one 

 species of monkey, genus Laopithecus, has been found. But no 

 Primates have been discovered in America later than the Miocene, 

 and none at all of the anthropoid or Old World ty})e. 



