of Man's Evolution. 



19 



that region it is infinitely less probable that the latest, highest, 

 most specialised of all animals — man — began being in these 

 remote regions. On the other hand, since only the lowest 

 members of the Primates have been distributed to both eastern 

 and western hemispheres, while the higher members exist 

 abundantly in the Old World, these facts indicate emphatically 

 that the higher primates were originated on this eastern hemi- 

 sphere — and this, too, in a latitude so far south of the land 

 connection between the two worlds that, for reasons already 

 mentioned, it became impossible for them to enter afterwards 

 the continent of America. 



Again, the fact that man, in remote antiquity, became uni- 

 versally distributed only proves that at that distant epoch he 

 had thoroughly acquired the necessary powers of locomotion, 

 and of accommodating himself to varieties of climate, tempera- 

 ture, and food, which among other characteristics mark him off 

 as an improved and highly specialised type. What we already 

 know of distribution, then, points to this first important 

 conclusion — that the higher primates, and therefore man, were 

 not originated within the Arctic Circle, nor yet in the New 

 World, but somewhere in the Old World alone. 



Being now confined to the Old World in our quest for the 

 remains of incipient man, let us next see whether we cannot get 

 some definite evidence as to the locality in this hemisphere 

 where his relics are to be found, still taking as our clue to search 

 the known facts of distribution, in past and present time, of the 

 monkeys and apes of the Old World, and beginning with the 

 lowest family, according to Mr. Mivart's classification (which is 

 adopted by Mr. Wallace) : it is as follows : — 



The Cynopitheoidce, or Old World monkeys of the dog-shaped 

 type, have, according to evidence, lived during the middle and 

 later Tertiary time in the south of England, the south of 

 France, and in Northern India. At present they are found in 

 Gibraltar, Northern, Western, Tropical, and Eastern Africa ; 

 they are also in Arabia, India, Eastern Thibet, Japan, and 

 the Malay Islands, including the Phillipines and the Celebes. 

 This goes to show that this, the lowest family of monkeys, has 

 been distributed, since middle Tertiary time, from the west of 

 Central Europe to Southern Europe and Eastern Asia, and from 

 thence as far south as the tropics of Africa and Malaysia. 



The next higher family of Simii, namely, the Scmnopithecidce 

 have during the same middle and later Tertiary periods lived in 

 Southern Germany and France, Italy, Greece, and Northern 

 India. They are now found in Eastern and Western Africa, 

 Indo-China, India, Ceylon, and Malaysia. Thus this family, 

 which is intermediate between the lowest monkeys and the 



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