278 Primitive Man. [May, 
Again, there was no doubt in regard to the fact that the cili- 
ated line or slit extending from the disk down the body of the 
animaleule became apparent only after it had been some time 
under observation, and that the length and activity of the cilia 
along it increased rapidly within a very few minutes, so as to be- 
come a striking and marked feature of its appearance. This 
raises the question whether the fringe of* cilia down the body, as 
described, is a specific characteristic of the Stentor Mülleri, or is 
not rather a mark of the beginning of fission in all Stentors, —a 
question which an amateur naturalist may state, but will not 
presume to express an opinion upon. 
In the instance above reported it is noteworthy that, except in 
the first appearance of the ciliated line down the body, there was 
nothing resembling a division by cutting or splitting. The body 
was of larger diameter than before, both above and below the 
new disk, when it first assumed the form of a protuberance with 
a ciliated circle on its anterior side ; and the subsequent diminu- 
tion of the diameter of the body and tail of the upper individual 
was gradual throughout its length, through the stages shown by 
the drawings. — 
The observations were made with a quarter-inch objective of 
low angle, but excellent definition and penetration, with the B 
eyepiece, and the situation of the Stentor in the compressor was 
very favorable for an unobstructed view of the phenomena at all 
stages. 
— 
PRIMITIVE MAN. 
T Rake steady progress of discovery justifies the inference that 
man, in the earliest periods of his existence of which we 
have any knowledge, was at the best a savage, enjoying the ad- 
vantage of a few rude inventions. According to the theory of 
evolution, which has the merit of being based on and not being 
inconsistent with observed analogies and processes of nature, he 
must have gone through a period when he was passing out of the 
animal into the human state, when he was not yet provided with 
tools of any sort, and when he lived simply the life of a brute. 
No proofs, however, of man in this earliest stage have as yet 
been found, and the term “ primitive man,” if intended to be 
strictly applied, is at present a misnomer. The earliest traces 
thus far discovered do not reveal to us his beginning. This ' 
still hidden in that mysterious past out of which he has emerged 
and into which neither science nor exploration has as yet pene 
1 From the late Professor Wyman’s Shell-Mounds of Florida. 
