208 



The First Men. 



ine their crania and judge tlieir cliaracter, wo' think we shall be sus- 

 tained in three assumptions. The tirst of these is, that man followed, 

 if he did not go with, the flora and fauna which were agreeable to him. 

 The second is, that when compelled to go to an inferior region the 

 effect was to degrade him below the standard attained by the first 

 men. The third is, that if he reached a region where he was sur- 

 rounded by superior influences, he shared in the common develop- 

 ment. In other words, primitive man was modified by the same 

 operating causes which affected vegetal and animal life in general. 



In view of the fact that we have zoological provinces partaking of char- 

 acteristics of different periods as far back as Eocene times, we would have 

 no difficulty in obtaining the concession that the original Adamites can 

 be traced in the persons of their descendants, if it were not for two 

 reasons. On the one hand, we are told that there were pre-Adamites ; 

 on the other, that all mankind were drowned in the deluge, so that 

 every race now existing descended from Noah. This latter position 

 we believe is untenable, from a scientific standpoint ; and we do not 

 believe it is a necessary interpretation of the account in Genesis. 



We think it to be an indisputable proposition that anatomically the 

 first men are represen ted to-day by the men of the lowest cranialogical 

 organization, specimens of which can be found either in the graves of 

 the dead or the lands of the living. As between races competing for 

 this rank, we think it .reasonable to hold, as the first men would 

 naturally follow familiar vegetation, that they are more likely to be 

 represented among the earliest races of America than among the earliest 

 races of any other continent. In prosecuting this inquiry, we are 

 manifestly limited to such earliest races. 



The Australioid is ethnologically lowest in the scale. Next to him, 

 among African races, is the Hottentot, and the two are'closely related. 

 On the other hand, the Malaj's are most nearly connected. The Aus- 

 tralioids have been traced to and identified with the man of the Dek- 

 kan, and the ancient Egyptians have been shown by Huxley to be 

 merely a development therefrom. They were a brown race, or Adamites 

 The Australioids and Hottentots have been shown to give evidence of 

 arrested development. Friedrich Muller regards the latter as a racial 

 ruin. We attribute this ruin to the severance of their relation with 

 more progressive stocks, and to their being cast away in a zoological 

 province unfavorable to their natural development. While we shall 

 consider them in comparison with other early races, we think it only 

 a fair conclusion that they do not represent the first men, absolutely. 

 The Australians have names for eight different winds, and many of 

 them speak English with fluency. *'They are peculiarly inventive in 

 expressions of courtesy, which they both require and bestow freely in 



