1015 





riiiMi'AX/Ki:. 



1018 



ire known in the garden*; the common kind, C. fragrant, with 

 mall pale-yellow flowen ; the C. f. gratdijloriu, with largo bright - 

 yellow flowen ; and another, C. f. /wro/orm, with flowen resembling 

 thon of the ftret, except in being much smaller. The hut is not worth 

 cultivating ; both the former should be found in every garden, how- 

 erer small. Nothing can be more elegant an room-ornaments than 

 handfuls of their round flowen placed on little porcelain trays. 



rillMl'AXXK.E, the name by which one of those forma which 

 approach qearrst to man is most generally known. The term bag 

 been applied to the Simia Satynu of Linnams, the Oriental Orang ; 

 but zoologists are now agreed in its proper application to the Black 

 or African Ormng or Pygmy (Troglodyte* ntger of Geoffrey, fiimiii 

 TrogloJytet of Blumenbach). Linmeus placed the form under the 

 genus JJumo. with the specific name Troglodyte*, next to Homo tapieiu, 

 arranging, as we hare seen above, the Asiatic Orang under the Simiit. 

 But he seems to have confounded the two species of Orangs, which 

 differ very considerably ; for he refen to the figure given by Bontius, 

 which was intended for the Asiatic, and yet he gives, quoting Pliny. 

 the borders of Ethiopia as its habitat, as well as Java, Amboyna, 

 Temate, and Mount Ophir in Malacca. That the Chimpanzee, though 

 much of its organisation bears a striking resemblance to that of Man, 

 is separated from him by a wide interval, the accurate investigations 

 of modern anatomists sufficiently prove. Tyson, Camper, Blumen- 

 bach, Cuvier, Lawrence, and especially Owen, have set that question 

 at rest, though Bory de St. Vincent struggled hard to retain Man and 

 the Orangs as members of the same zoological family. Before we refer 

 to the arguments of the hut-named zoologist and his followers, it will 

 be necessary to apprize the reader that, to say nothing of the difference 

 of organisation in other parts of the body and foot, the heel-bone (os 

 calcu) of man does not project backwards so far in proportion aa that 

 of the Chimpanzee, and Lawrence notes this as an infallible human 

 characteristic ; ' ex ealce hominem.' Bory de St. Vincent, and those 

 who support the theory of gradual development of animal form, 

 endeavour to show that the position of the great toe, upon which its 

 conversion into an opposeable organ, or thumb, and the consequent 

 transmutation of the foot into a hand, principally depends, is a cha- 

 racter subject to modification ; and, after a somewhat sweeping 

 assumption that it is the only difference of organisation between the 

 Orangs and Man, points the whole strength of his argument against its 

 value as a zoological character ; and, by a rather retrograde process 

 of reasoning, endeavours to support hia views by giving an instance 

 where man, under certain circumstances, obtains a prehensile power 

 of foot. Calling in aid the Resiniers of the Landes of Aquitaine, he 

 exhibits them as having acquired a power of opposing the great toe to 

 the others, a faculty supposed to have been arrived at by their scan- 

 sorial habits in obtaining their living by gathering the resin of l'inu.< 

 narilima. " But," as Professor Owen well observes, " supposing the 

 extent of motion of the great toe to be sufficiently increased by con- 

 stant habits of climbing, or in connection with a congenital defect of 

 the upper extremities, yet it does not appear that the os calcis, or the 

 other bones of the foot, have lost any of those proportions which so 

 unerringly distinguish man from the ape." M. Bory, however, in his 

 zealous endeavours to lower the arrogance which makes man unwilling 

 to fraternise with apes and monkeys, is carried so far as to give vent 

 to this naive question : " En effet, quatre mains ne vaudraient ellea 

 pas mieux que deux comme c'le'mens de perfectibilite' ? " "In fact, 

 are not four handa of more value than two as elements of perfecti- 

 bility?" Now, let us look at this fallacy, for a fallacy it is. There 

 might be a little, and a very little after all, in the query, if any one 

 of the four hands of the Qnndrumana, or all of them put together, 

 approached the hand of man as an instrument of action, an instru- 

 ment whereby, though born the most helpless of animals and without 

 rl.. thing or any natural protection, he has made himself master ol 

 all, and compelled the apparently most impracticable natural produc- 

 tions to minister not only to his wants but to his most luxurious 

 imaginations. Let any one who is at all conversant with anima 

 mechanics look at the hand of a Chimpanzee, and compare it with his 

 own ; or let any one observe the Chimpanzee using his apology for a 

 thumb, and then cast his eyes on the merest hodman at hia work, and 

 he will soon see where the advantage lies. And this is not all " T< 

 (rive due force to this proposition," says Professor Owen in his paper 

 ' On the Osteology of the Chimpanzee and Orang-Utan,' " the four 

 hands of the ape ought to be independent of any share in stationary 

 rapport or progression. Now, it is scarcely necessary to observe tha< 

 the perfection of the hands of man results, in a great measure, from 

 the free use he is enabled to make of them in consequence of the 

 organisation of the lower members as exclusive instruments for sus- 

 taining and moving the body. It has, however, been suggested thn 

 the hallnx (thumb) of the orang might acquire increased length an< 

 strength during the effort* of successive generation!* to maintain thi 

 erect position ; but if we look a little further into the anatomy of the 

 orangs, a difficulty presents itself unforeseen by Lamarck and Bory 

 The muscle called 'flexor lougux pollicis pedis' terminates, in the 

 human subject, in a single tendon, and its force is concentrated on 

 the great toe, the principal point of resistance in raining the bod; 

 upon the heel. In the orang, however, the analogous muscle term) 

 nates in three tendons, which are inserted separately and exclusive); 

 in the three middle tow, obviously to enable these to grasp with greater 



orce the boughs of trees, to. It is surely asking too much to n 

 us to believe that in the couree of time, under any circumstances, 

 hese three tendons should become consolidated into one, and that 

 one become implanted into a toe, to which none of the three separate 

 tendons were before attached. The myology of the orangs, to which 

 may hereafter endeavour to direct more attention than it has yet 

 received, affords many arguments equally unanswerable against the 

 tossibility of their transmutation into a higher race 

 '"rom the same author we take the following summary comparison of 

 he Chimpanzee and Orang-Outan with each other, and with rnau : 



Skeleton of Man. 



Skeleton of Chimpanzee. From Ocn. 



The Chimpanzee differs osteologicnlly from the Oraug : 1. In 

 having the cranium flatter and brooder in proportion to tin- 

 2. In having the nupraciliary ridgOH more developed, ami in the 

 absence of tin- interparietal and sagittal crests. 3. In the jun.' 

 the temporal with the frontal bones. 4. In the greater ] 

 breadth of the interorbital Rpace. 5. In the more cent> 

 and less oblique plain- of the occipital foramen. 6. In having l>ut 

 one anterior condyloid foramen on each side, while the orang ha 

 7. In having generally but one suborbital foramen on each si.le. \v)iilt> 

 the orang has three or more. 8. In the persistence of the cranial 

 sutures. 9. In the earlier obliteration of the maxillo-intennaxilhiry 

 sutures. 10. In the smaller proportional size of tin' incisive an.l canine 

 teeth, and consequent smaller development of the jawa, esp. 

 of the intermaxillary bones. 11. In the smaller proportional 

 the cervical vertebra, and larger proportional size of the lumbar ver- 

 tebra!. 12. In the additional dorsal vertebra correaponctii.K *< the 

 additional pair of ribs. 13. In the more complete composition ..)' the 

 sternum, which consists of a single and not double series of 1 

 as in the orang. 14. In the greater aiginoid curve of the < I 

 which in the orang is nearly straight. 15. In the less pr.,]., .. 

 breadth of the scapula, and the more lateral aspect of the e I 

 cavity. 16. In the less proportional breadth and greater length of the 

 sacrum. 17. In the less proportional breadth of the ilium, And ;; 



