GORILLA 
ORANG CHIMPANZEE 
GIBBON 
\ 
ANTHROPOLOGY. 177 
skull; the Gorilla, in the hand and foot. Further, these 
apes have a rudimentary tail, like that of man. (Figs. 206 
to 210.) By comparing the skeletons of man and the apes, 
the differences will be found to be also very striking. (See 
Figs. 206, etc.) The more probable theory of the relation- 
ship of man to the Anthropoid Apes is that they are very 
distant cousins, the posterity of a common ancestor of 
some extinct form whose remains have not as yet been dis- 
covered. 
The birthplace and antiquity of man, like his genealogy, 
are still involved in obscurity. Many geologists and 
naturalists, however, suppose that there once existed a 
continent where the Indian Ocean now rolls, which 
stretched from the Sunda Islands to Madagascar. This 
sunken land is called by Sclater, Lemuria, from the half 
monkeys, the Lemurs and their allies, being so characteristic 
of Madagascar and the Indian Archipelago. This view of 
a land of Lemuria having once existed harmonizes very 
well with the evidences of Ethnology, Philology, etc., 
which point to some intermediate spot between Southern 
Asia and Eastern Africa, like Lemuria, as the birthplace 
of the human species. As regards the antiquity of man, 
the data are so imperfect that it is impossible to give an 
estimate. Some authors think man appeared in the latter 
period of the Tertiary Age; according to others, still 
earlier. However this may be, it is certain that immense 
periods of time must have elapsed since the appearance 
of man. 
Those who are impressed with the poetical idea of a 
Golden Age, from which man has fallen, no doubt find 
it difficult to admit that he has descended from an ape. 
The explorations of the last forty years, however, have 
proved that so far from there having been a Golden Age, 
the first age was that of Stone (the implements being made 
out of stone, hence the name of the age), followed by one 
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