484 



OEIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OP MAN. 



[Ch. XLIII. 



America 



the Platyrrliine. 



As to the Mesopitliecns of Pikermi, the skeleton is ahnost 



more 



to light. 



Miocene 



It differs genericallj from any of the Hying Indian 

 forins^ not so much by presenting any novel features in its 

 strncture as by combining characters which now belong to 

 two distinct Indian types. For, says M. Gandry, one might 

 say that the living Semnopitheci of India have borrowed 



type, while the living Macaci 

 have borrowed from it their limbs. ^In how different a 

 light/ exclaims this eminent paleontologist, ^does the question 

 of the natm^e of species now present itself to us from that 

 in which it appeared only twenty years ago, before we had 



"^'reece and the allied forms of 

 other countries; how clearly do these fossil relics point to the 

 idea that species, genera, families, and orders now so distinct, 



-^ The more we advance and fill 

 up the gaps, the more we feel persuaded that the remaining 



remai 



c omm on 



voids exist rather in our knowledge than in nature. 



A few 



blows of the pickaxe at the foot of the Pyrenees, of the 

 Himalaya, of Mount Pentelicus in G-reece, a few diggings in 



eim 



Mauvaises 



Nebraska, have revealed to us the closest connectii 

 between forms which seemed before so widely separated ! 

 How much closer will these links be drawn when paleon- 

 tology shall have escaped from its cradle ! ' "^ 



Many 



eminent 



m 



cultivated literary critics, and some 



have arisen on the origin of species, an entire incapability 

 of weighing and appreciating the evidence for and against 

 Transmutation, and this chiefly for two reasons : first, they 

 have never been called upon, as classifiers in natural history, 

 practically to decide wlietlier certain forms, fossil or recent, 

 should rank as species or as mere varieties — a point on wliicli 



the 



most eminent zoologists and botanists often disagree; 



secondly, they are quite unconscious of tlie fragmentary 



i 



-t 



% 



^ GauJrv, Auiniaux rosslles cle Pikermi, 18GG; p. o: 



-^1. 



\ 





