AFFINITIES AND OENEALOG F. 177 



from tlie laws of geographical distribution. In each great 

 region of the world the living mammals are closely related 

 to the extinct species of the siime region. It is, therefore, 

 probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes 

 closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these 

 two species are now man's nearest allies, it is somewhat 

 more probable that our early progenitors lived on the 

 African continent than elsewhere. But it is useless to 

 speculate on this subject; for two or three anthropomor- 

 phous apes, one the Dryopithecus * of Lartet, nearly as 

 large as a man, and closely allied to Hylobates, existed in 

 Europe during the Miocene age; and since so remote a 

 period the earth has certainly undergone many great revo- 

 lutions, and there has been ample time for migration on the 

 largest scale. 



At the period and place, whenever and wherever it was, 

 when man first lost his hairy covering, he probably 

 inhabited a hot country; a circumstance favorable for 

 the frugiferous diet on which, judging from analogy, 

 he subsisted. We are far from knowing how long ago 

 it was when man first diverged from the. Catarrhine stock; 

 but it may have occurred at an epoch as remote as the 

 Eocene period; for that the higher apes had diverged from 

 the lower apes as early as the Upper Miocene period is 

 shown by the existence of the Dryopithecus. We are also 

 quite ignorant at how rapid a rate organisms, Vhether high 

 or low in the scale, may be modified under favorable cir- 

 cumstances; we know, however, that some have retained 

 the same form during an enormous lapse of time. From 

 what we see going on under domestication we learn that 

 some of the co-descendants of the same species may be not 

 at all, some a little, and some greatly changed, all within 

 the same period. Thus it may have been wdth man, who 

 has undergone a great amount of modification in certain 

 characters in comparison with the higher apes. 



The great break in the organic chain between man and 

 his nearest allies, which cannot be bridged over by any ex- 

 tinct or living species, has often been advanced as a grave 

 objection to the belief that man is descended from some 

 lower form; but this objection will not appear of much 



*Dr. C. Forsyth Major, " Sur les Singes Fossiles trouves en 

 Jtalie: " Soc. Ital. des Sc. Nat.," torn, xv, 1872. 



