326 THE HISTORY OF CREATION, 



Most circumstances indicate southern Asia as the locality in 

 question. Besides southern Asia, the only other of the now 

 existing continents which might be viewed in this light is 

 Africa. But there are a number of circumstances (especially 

 ehorological facts) which suggest that the primseval home - 

 of man was a continent now sunk below the surface of the 

 Indian Ocean, which extended along the south of Asia, as it 

 is at present (and probably in direct connection with it), 

 towards the east, as far as further India and the Simda 

 Islands ; towards the west, as far as Madagascar and the 

 south-eastern shores of Africa. We have already mentioned 

 that many facts in animal and vegetable geography render 

 the former existence of such a south Indian continent very 

 probable. (Compare vol. i. p. 361.) Sclater has given this 

 continent the name of Lemuria, from the Semi-apes which 

 were characteristic of it. By assuming this Lemuria to 

 have been man's primaeval home, we greatly facilitate the 

 explanation of the geographical distribution of the human 

 species by migration. (Compare the Table of Migrations 

 XV., and its explanation at the end.) 



We as yet know of no fossil remains of the hypothetical 

 primaeval man (Homo primigenius) who developed out of 

 anthropoid apes during the tertiary period, either in 

 Lemuria or in southern Asia, or possibly in Africa. But A 

 considering the extraordinary resemblance between the 

 lowest woolly-haired men, and the highest man-like apes, 

 which still exist at the present day, it requires but a slight 

 stretch of the imagination to conceive an intermediate form 

 connecting the two, and to see in it an approximate likeness 

 to the. supposed primaeval men, or ape-like men. The 

 form of their skuU was probably very long, with slanting 



