72 MAMMALS. 



action of the law of development tlirougli which new species are derived ; and I account for the 

 product being something less than what would be reckoned a species in other orders by the high 

 organisation of the creature developed. 



Still in whatever light we regard them, or by whatever means we attempt to account for 

 the difference between the two, we must trace the one to the other ; and two other questions 

 arise — viz. "Which race is descended from the other, that is, which is the oldest? and 

 through which of its known tribes, supposing us to know them all, (which, by the way, we can 

 scarcely suppose that we do,) did the other draw its origin ? 



These are questions which we have not sufficient data to enable us to answer. Such as we 

 have, however, seem rather to point to the white race drawing its origin from the black, than the 

 black from the white. In the first place, it is in the direction of progress. In the next place, 

 according to the alternations of elevation and subsidence on which we have been specidating, 

 while the great continent of the southern hemisphere was in its prime and peopled by the black 

 race, the northern continents were almost wholly under water, and possibly without hiunan inha- 

 bitants. (See Maps 2 and 3.) 



The second question is not less difficult : Where has the passage from the one race to the other 

 been made ? We maj^ coast along the barrier line, and try everywhere for a point of resemblance 

 which may guide us in saying, " Here is the point where the crossing took place," but we can find 

 absolutel}' none ; the line is everywhere clear and defined ; and this is another reason for thinking 

 that here there has been an exercise of the developing power similar to what we see in the case 

 of new species. "Wliere nature really takes a step from one species to another she leaves no trace of 

 her passage ; and this, as the reader knows, is the recalcitrant fact which, by refusing to be backed 

 into the line of Mr. Darwdn's argmnent, chiefly disarranges its array ; we seek in vain for the passage 

 from an elephant to a rhinoceros, or from a monltey to a man ; as Prof. Huxley says, " The fossil 

 remains of man, hitherto discovered, do not seem to take us apparently nearer to that lower Pithecoid 

 form by the modification of which he has probablj^ become what he is ;"* no such transitional forms 

 appear ever to have existed, and if so of course none can be found. 



The only indication which occurs to me as likely to lead to even an approximation to the 

 truth, is perhaps to be looked for in the habits of tribes. Where two tribes of the 

 different races have similar habits or weapons, that fact may perhaps be taken as e-vidence 

 of proximity or acquaintance at some period long since gone by; for instance, the suinpitan, or 

 blow-pipe, is used by some of the tribes of New Guinea, and also by those of the Amazons and 

 Orinocko, and by no other race in the whole world. It is rather a peculiar weapon, not one likely 

 to occur independently to two minds ; may they not both have derived it from a common source ? Dr. 

 Daniel Wilson on other groimds supports the conclusion to which this would lead, — he says that 

 " many analogies confirm the probability of some portion of the North American stock having 

 entered the continent from Asia ;" but that " while theoretically the northern passage seems so 

 easy, yet so far as any direct proof goes, the Polynesian entrance into the south across the wide 

 barrier of the Pacific is the one most readily sustained. "f Another point not to be overlooked is, 

 that at some period in the past history of these regions, South America was most probably united to 

 Australia, if we may draw any inference from the presence of alKed forms of life common to both. 



* Huxley's " Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature," Civilisation in the Old and New World," by Daniel 

 1863. Wilson, L.L.D. 



I Prehistoric man — " Researches into the Origin of 



