14 



MAW AND A/' AS. 



with those enormous paws at their extremities ; its short, bowed, and tottering legs, nnable to 

 support the huge body without the help of the arms ; the massive jaw-bones and protruding 

 face, put the creature at an unappreciable distance from humanity, even though it is repre- 

 sentee! in an attitude as similar to that of the human being as the organization of the bones 

 will permit. Any one who could fancy himself to be descended, however remotely, from such 

 n being, is welcome to his ancestry. 



Contrast with the skeleton of the gorilla, that of man. Light in structure, and perfectly 

 balanced on the small and delicate feet ; the slender arms, with their characteristic hands ; the 



smooth and rounded 

 skull ; the small jaw- 

 bones and regular teeth, 

 all show themselves as 

 the framework of a be- 

 ing whose strength is to 

 lie in his intellect, and 

 not in the mere brute 

 power of bone and mus- 

 cle. There seems to be 

 a strange eloquence in 

 form, which speaks at 

 once to the heart in lan- 

 guage that can only be 

 felt, and is beyond the 

 power of analysis to re- 

 solve. Thus, the con- 

 trasted shapes of these 

 two frames speak more 

 forcibly of the immeas- 

 urable distance between 

 the two beings of which 

 they form a part, than 

 could be expressed in 

 many pages of careful 

 description. Strength 

 for strength, the ape is 

 many times the man's 

 superior, and could rend 

 him to pieces in sin- 

 gle combat. But that 

 slender human frame 

 can be so intellectually 

 strengthened, that a single man could destroy a troop of apes, if he so desired, and without 

 offering them the possibility of resistance. 



One great cause of the awkward bipedal walk of the monkey tribes, is the position of the 

 orifice in the skull, through which the spinal cord enters the brain. In the human skull this 

 orifice is so placed that the head is nearly equally balanced, and a considerable portion of the 

 skull projects behind it; but in the lower animals, this orifice— called the "occipital foramen" 

 i^ set s<> far hack, thai the whole weight of the brain and skull is thrown Forwards, and so 

 overbalances the body. 



Another cause is seen in the structure of the hind limbs These members are intended 

 for progression among the branches of trees, and are so formed that, when the animal uses 

 them for terrestrial locomotion, it is forced to tread, not upon their soles, but upon their sides. 

 The muscular calves, which hrace the foot and limb, are wanting in the Quadrumanous 

 animals; and even when they are standing as uprightly as possible, the knees are always 



SKELETON M\N 



SKELETON GORILLA. 



