40 
Records of the Geological Surveg of India. 
[vOL. XII 
Further, it seems hardly to admit of doubt that three such closely allied genera as 
Troglodytes, Palceoplthecus, and Simia must have had a common parentage and a 
common ancestral home. For three tropical or .sub-tropical genera inhabiting 
respectively Western Africa, Northern India, and Sumatra and Borneo, the un¬ 
known common home may have possibly been situated in the Indian Ocean, being 
in fact the hypothetical sunken southern continent, whether it be called ‘ Lemuria,’ 
‘ Indo-Oceania,’ or whatnot, to the former existence of which so many separate lines 
of evidence point. This vanished land was probably once the common home of the 
African and Indian ostriche.s,l which must have had a common centre of dis¬ 
persion. Here also we may possibly look for the old home of the ilanis of Siwalik 
and modern India, and of modern Africa. 
If this hypothetical sunken southern continent^ was the centre of disjiersion of 
the anthropoid Primates, it is not improbable, nay rather it is almost certain, that 
numbers of species and genera must have lived and died, and linally become extinct, 
on that continent, and that only some of their descendants reached the borders of 
that continent—in other words, Africa, India, and Borneo. If this be so, it is 
jirobable that all records of some anthropoid Primates have long since, and for ever, 
been entirely removed from human cognizance, while it is possible that among 
these may have been forms nearer to man than any of those of which ive have any 
records. On this 8up])osition it is possible that wo may never discover the 
“missing link.s.’’ On the other hand, we have in the tropical countries which 
border the Indian Seas the ]n’obnble 2 )eriphory of this sunken continent, and it 
is among the unexplored tertiaries of these countries that wo may yet hope to 
find fos.sil forms of Trimates, Avhich may tend to bridge the great gulf which 
now exists between the highe.st known ape and man. Of these countries, the 
geology of Africa and Sumatra and Borneo is virtually unknoivn. In India only 
a few scattered localities have hitherto yielded mammalian remains, and remains 
of Primates are of extremely rare occurrence in them. Thus, in the much- 
ivorked Siwaliks W'e only know of two specimens of the remains of anthroj)oid 
apes, which ha.ve been discovered at an interval of many year.s apart, among 
thousands of specimens obtained. There is, therefore, no reason to assume that 
other forms of anthropoid apes did not exist in that period. In Central and 
Southern India, with the exception of the little known Perim bods, we have no 
equivalents of the Siwaliks ; and there is here therefore abundant room for older 
Primates to have existed without our having the least knowledge of them. 
In the newer Nerbudda gi’oup scarcely any small fos.sils have been col¬ 
lected ; and yet there is an absolute certainty that many forms of Primates 
1 Stbutiiio ASIaticus, M.-Edwards, “ OUeaux Fossilcs de la Franco,” A^ol. 11, p. 687, and 
article in present number. 
2 Mr. Wallace (“ Tropical Niiture, ” p. 320) 1ms come to the conclusion tliat “ Lemuria” never 
existed, or that it at all events must have di.sappcared before the miocenc. There appears to me, 
however, to be a preat weight of evidence in favor of a former hand connection between the 
conlinents of the old world, though this connection mav very possibly have disappeared in com¬ 
paratively early Tertiary times. 
