Editorials. 



The December Forum contains an interesting article by Dr. 

 D. G. Brinton on " The Beginning of Man and the Age of the 

 Race." It affords, incidentally, several suggestions of value to 

 geologists who are concerned in working out the problems which 

 relate to the fossil relics of man on this continent. Dr. Brinton 

 reasons that we have good grounds for locating man's birthplace 

 only where mammals that are very near to him in physical prow- 

 ess and mental aptitude are known to have existed some fifty or 

 one hundred thousand years ago. This, he thinks, " at once 

 excludes a large portion of the earth's surface, as the Arctic, Ant- 

 arctic, and colder temperate zones, the lofty plateaus of the world 

 and its inclement shores." " The whole of America must be 

 excluded, for it shows no signs of having been the home of the 

 higher mammals, that is, apes or monkeys without tails and with 

 thirty-two teeth." By similar exclusions, the area of probable 

 origin of man is limited to Southern Asia, Southern Europe, and 

 Northern Africa. A fuller exposition of Dr. Brinton's views was 

 given in his address before the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science at Madison iast August. 



Without giving unqualified assent to all the limitations urged 

 by Dr. Brinton, it would appear from the distribution of types 

 kindred to man in the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods, and from 

 the fact that the evolution of a naked animal from the hairy one 

 can reasonably be supposed to have taken place only in a very 

 warm climate', that primitive man, in the strict and proper sense 

 of the term, can scarcely be supposed to have been an inhabitant 

 of America. It is difficult to see how he could have reached 

 this continent while in his strictly primitive state by land migra- 

 tion (even if there were land connection in the Behring region) 



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