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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 743 



were passed. The sago palm is cut down near the 

 ground and the top lopped off; the trunk is split 

 and the mass of sago broken up by means of a 

 cylindrical stone set as an adz. The houses differ 

 from those along the coast. They are built on 

 piles, to be sure; instead of being squarish, they 

 are long, narrow and absolutely open at each end. 

 This is to provide ventilation, as the natives sleep 

 in long mosquito-proof, tightly woven rattan bags. 

 There is usually an altar with human images. 

 Human skulls (of relatives) are placed on the 

 floor in front of these altars. The canoes are 

 carved at one end to represent the alligator. 



" Geological Facts bearing on the Place of the 

 Origin of the Human Eace " was the title of a 

 paper by Professor George Frederick Wright. It 

 is becoming more and more clear that the glacial 

 period was ushered in by a general land elevation 

 over all the northern hemisphere (if not the whole 

 world). All the high mountains of the world bear 

 Tertiary strata at elevations of several thousand 

 feet. The effect of such elevation would be to 

 enlarge the continental area around all their 

 borders and form land connection between north- 

 western America and northeastern Asia and pos- 

 sibly between Greenland and northern Europe. 

 It would also connect North America with South 

 America through the West Indies, and Europe 

 with Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar and 

 the shallow belt extending south from Sicily. 

 That there was such a land connection appears 

 from the fact that at the close of the Tertiary 

 period, as the glacial epoch was approaching, 

 there was a remarkable intermingling of the 

 fauna of these connected regions. The elephant 

 and rhinoceros came over from Africa and wan- 

 dered as far north as Yorkshire, England. The 

 megalonyx and some other South American spe- 

 cies wandered into North America as far as Ohio, 

 while the marmnoth spread from central Asia 

 across Siberia to northwestern America and wan- 

 dered to the Atlantic coast and borders of Mexico. 



Cumulative evidence seems to point to central 

 Asia as the center from which man was dispersed 

 in company with the mammoth over the entire 

 northern hemisphere. Central Asia seems to have 

 been the earliest center of civilization. Here in 

 the ancient valley of the Oxus, according to Pom- 

 pelly, there are ruins of cities which reach back 

 to 8000 B.C., and here, beyond reasonable doubt, 

 the Aryan family of languages had its origin. 



A study of the physical changes which passed 

 over this region contemporaneously with those in 

 northern America and Europe during the glacial 

 period and the now undoubted connection of man 



with the glacial period, render very plausible the 

 hypothesis that the changes connected with that 

 period were a contributory cause of the dispersion 

 of mankind from this Asiatic center. Recent 

 investigations show that, during the glacial period, 

 central Asia offered a specially favorable area for 

 the development of man together with both the 

 vegetable and animal species upon which he is 

 dependent for means of sustenance. The whole 

 region is dependent upon irrigation, which is 

 secured by the flow of water which comes down 

 from the melting ice and snow on the lofty moun- 

 tain heights. At the present time this irrigated 

 belt is a very large one, but during the glacial 

 period when the ice came several thousand feet 

 lower down on the mountains (but never to the 

 plains), the irrigated areas were immensely 

 larger, furnishing sustenance for an indefinitely 

 larger population. But at this time all northern 

 Europe and northern America were enveloped in 

 glacial ice. But as the glacial period declined the 

 supply of water from the mountains of central 

 Asia diminished and the oases contracted so as 

 greatly to curtail the field of human occupation. 

 Contemporaneously with this curtailment in cen- 

 tral Asia the fertile plains of Europe and North 

 America were opened to occupation by the melting 

 of the ice, so that streams of emigration entered 

 both Europe and North America from this com- 

 mon center. In America the Aryan-speaking races 

 are just entering upon this glacial inheritance. 

 It certainly means a great deal in the settlement 

 of the question of the origin of the human race 

 that we have so many classes of facts pointing to 

 this conclusion or at least coinciding with this 

 theory. 



Professor Wright also presented for inspection 

 three implements recently found, supposed to be 

 of glacial age. The first was one already de- 

 scribed by Miss Luella A. Owen in the sixth 

 volume of "Records of the Past." The evidence 

 is perfectly satisfactory that it was found in un- 

 disturbed loess at St. Joseph, Mo., thirty feet or 

 more below the surface. The second was found in 

 the bottom of a pit where the loess was being 

 excavated two or three miles above St. Joseph, 

 and in all probability came from the loess. Both 

 these implements are of paleolithic type and the 

 patina upon them and the oxidation of the sur- 

 face indicate great age. The third implement, 

 which is of a familiar paleolithic type, was found 

 in a gravel pit excavated in a " kame terrace " 

 on the border of the River Styx in Wadsworth, 

 Medina County, Ohio. But it was found on the 

 floor of the pit so that the evidence is not definite 



