THE ORANG OUTANG. 



from the others ; the forehead is higher, the nofe flatter, and the eyes much 

 funk : he has like wife enumerated many elfential differences in its internal 

 conformation. 



Mr. Pennant thinks Sir John Mandeville certainly meant this animal, 

 when he fays, in his travels, p. 30 1, that he came to ** another yle where 

 the folk ben alle fkynned roughe heer, as a rough bell, faf only the face and 

 the pawme of the hand." 



There is certainly a ftriking refemblance between the external form of 

 fome Apes, particularly of the Orang Outang, and that of the human 

 Ipecies ; and, as an ingenious writer obferves (a), fo great is the fimilitude 

 between their movements and phyfiognomy, that man, aftonifhed as it were, 

 at the unexpected afpect of thefe animals, and afhamed of the many 

 refemblances, fo degrading to human nature, has been willing to allow Apes 

 an undemanding fuperior to the reft of the brute creation. This has, in a 

 great meafure, given rife to the marvellous hiftories, and dreams of a heated 

 imagination, with which our predeceffors have loaded us, when treating of 

 thefe animals. Thefe relations, frequently hazarded and repeated, have led 

 to the belief, that a race of animals really exifted, which occupied the 

 intermediate fpace between man and the brute creation. 



It is worthy of remark, that the fingers of Apes, Baboons, and Monkeys 

 have not the faculty of moving feparately as in man, but that they open and 

 fhut all together. It is perhaps greatly owing to this circumftance that 

 their imitation falls fo far fhort of perfection. 



Camper, in his " Diflertation of the natural Varieties which characterize 

 the Phyfiognomy of Men of different Climates and different Ages," after 

 having examined the profile of the head of a perfect man, fuch as the 

 Greeks have left us as a model, finds that the facial line is perpendicular to 

 a horizontal line paffmg from the bottom of the nofe to the auditory paffages; 

 and that it departs more or lefs from its perpendicular, in proportion as 

 the fubject is more or lefs civilized; or, in other words, in proportion as 

 the intellectual faculty is more or lefs cultivated. 



(a) Audebert. 



