194 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 18& 



positively that the neighboring group of New 

 Zealand was settled only about five hundred years 

 ago. Passing on to the old continent, we find 

 that the Japanese historical traditions go back, 

 and that doubtfully, only to a period about twenty- 

 five hundred years ago ; those of China only 

 about four thousand years ; those of the Aryans, 

 vaguely, to about the same time ; the Assyrians, 

 more surely, a little longer ; and the Egyptians to 

 the date fixed by Lepsius for Menes, not quite 

 four thousand years before Christ. No evidence 

 of tradition, or of any monument of social man, 

 points to his existence on the earth at a period 

 exceeding seven thousand years before the present 

 time. Yet the investigations which have followed 

 the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes have satis- 

 fied the great majority of scientific men that 

 human beings have been living on the globe for a 

 term which must be computed, not by thousands 

 of years, but by tens and probably hundreds of 

 thousands. Writers of all creeds, and of all 

 opinions on other subjects, concur in the view 

 that the existence of man goes back to a remote 

 period, in comparison with which the monuments 

 of Egypt are but of yesterday ; and yet these 

 monuments, as has been said, are the oldest con- 

 structions of social man which are known to exist. 

 How shall we explain this surprising discrepancy ? 

 How shall we account for the fact that man has 

 existed for possibly two hundred thousand years, 

 and has only begun to form societies and to build 

 cities within less than seven thousand years ? In 

 other words, how, as scientific men, shall we bring 

 the conclusions of geology and palaeontology into 

 harmony with those of archaeology and history ? 



Fortunately, the geologists and physiologists 

 thcEiselves, by their latest discoveries, have fur- 

 nished the means of clearing up the perplexities 

 which their earlier researches had occasioned. 

 We learn from these discoveries that while a being 

 entitled to the name of man has occupied some 

 portions of the earth during a vast space of time, 

 in one and perhaps two geological eras, the ac- 

 quisition by this being of the power of speech is 

 in all probability an event of recent occurrence. 

 The main facts on which this opinion is based 

 must necessarily, in this summary, be very briefly 

 stated. 



The earliest men of whom we have any certain 

 knowledge, the paloeolithic men, as they are 

 styled, are distinguished by scientific investiga- 

 tors, as is well known, into two distinct races, 

 belonging to widely different epochs. Prof. Boyd 

 Dawkins styles the earlier race the ' river-drift 

 men,' and the later the ' cave-men.' The river- 

 drift men were, in his view, hunters and savages 

 of the lowest grade. In his opinion, this race is 



now " as completely extinct as the woolly rhino- 

 ceros or the cave-bear." We have, he considers, 

 no clue to its ethnology ; and its relation to the 

 race that succeeded it is doubtful. The cave-men 

 were of a much higher order, and were especially 

 remarkable for their artistic talents. Prof, de 

 Quatrefages distinguishes the types of the two 

 races as the ' man of Canstadt ' and the ' man of, 

 Cro-Magnon,' — terms derived from places where 

 crania belonging to these races have been found. 

 Prof. A. de Mortillet knows the earlier race as the 

 ' Chellean man ' or the • man of Neanderthal,' and 

 the later as the ' Magdaleoran man,' — designations 

 also derived from localities where their remains 

 or their implements have been discovered. An 

 under-jaw of an individual of this race, the cele- 

 brated * jawbone of La Naulette,' affords what 

 Prof, de Mortillet considers decisive evidence that 

 its possessor had not the faculty of speech. This 

 evidence is thus stated by him: "In the middle 

 of the inner curve of the jaw, in place of a little 

 excrescence called the ' genial tubercle,' there is 

 a hollow, as with monkeys. Speech or articulate 

 language," he continues, "is produced by move- 

 ments of the tongTie in certain ways. These move- 

 ments are effected mainly by the action of the 

 muscle inserted in the genial tubercle. The exist- 

 ence of this tubercle is therefore essential to the 

 possession of language. Animals which have not 

 the power of speech do not possess the genial 

 tubercle. If, then, this tubercle is lacking in the 

 Naulette jawbone, it is because the man of Nean- 

 derthal, the ' Chellean man,' was incapable of 

 articulate speech." 



In 1880, another jawbone belonging to this race 

 was found by Prof. Maschka in the Schipka cave, 

 in north-eastern Moravia ; and in this jaw, also, 

 the ' genial tubercle ' was lacking. The inference 

 derived from this evidence is strengthened by the 

 peculiar shape of the crania belonging to this 

 race, which are singularly low in the frontal 

 region, leading to the belief that the third or lower 

 frontal convolution of the brain, sometimes called 

 ' Broca's convolution,' was imperfectly developed 

 in the men of this race, as it is known to be in the 

 anthropoid apes. It is in this convolution that 

 Dr. Paul Broca has determined the seat of the 

 faculty of language. Any lesion or disease of this 

 part of the brain, as medical men are aware, pro- 

 duces aphasia, or the loss of the power of speech. 



The succeeding race, the cave-men, or men of 

 Cro-Magnon, jDossessed, as their osseous remains 

 show, not only the ' genial tubercle,' but re- 

 markably high and well-developed crania. Prof, 

 de Quatrefages pronounces them ' a magnificent 

 race.' Their carved and engraved implements 

 display a superior artistic faculty. In the opinion 



