PLATE LVII. 



majesty in mind and form amidst the race of beings subservient to 

 his dominion, but whatever may be the distance of the interval 

 between those beings and man, the Simiae presents us with the next 

 connecting hnk in the great chain of nature. 



In the Simia race, Hke that of every other extensive genera in 

 nature, the gradations in descent are many ; transitions not abrupt 

 but gradual, and as the first of the human race is rational man, so is 

 the sagacious and demure Ourang-Outang, as far at least as our 

 present knowledge extends, the first of the Simia tribe, the primate 

 of the brute creation ^. 



* Some among- the number of our readers who may have chanced to 

 devote a visit to the inspection of that ambiguous object which under the 

 specious appellation of the Mermaid had of late obtained so much celebrity 

 in our metropolis, will now perceive, and not without surprise, the very close 

 analogy that prevails between the head, arms, and trunk of that dried 

 distoi tion and the Orang-Outang, which is here submitted to their attention. 



This Mermaid*" as it has been denominated, has become an object of 

 no mean attraction to the public mind for some time. The very confident man^ 

 ner in which it was first produced to notice could not fail to ensure its popu- 

 larity, and the kind complacency with which it was subsequently received, 

 has confirmed its reputation. It has been gazed upon by the admirers of 

 the marvellous, without suspicion, as a wonder of the vasty deep,'' at 

 once calculated to remove the doubts of ages, and to confirm beyond the 

 possibility of distrust, the actual existence of such a being as the Mermaid: 

 an anomaly so absurd as an intermediate link of the great chain of nature 

 at once uniting that dignified and important creature man ! with the finny 

 broods of the watery element. 



We are not without some apprehension that in endeavouring to explain 



* Vide the letter by Dr. Phillips, Missionary at the Cape of Good Hope to the 

 Home Missionary Society of London, &c. &c. 



