Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/206

194 that "the mammals of the Lower Eocene exhibit a greater percentage of types that walk on the soles of their feet, while the successive periods exhibit an increasing number of those that walk on the toes; while the hoofed animals and Carnivora of recent times nearly all have the heel high in the air, the principal exceptions being the elephant and bear families." After presenting the gradual osteological changes of the foot, from the earlier types to the later ones, through several lines of descent, considering also the teeth as well, he says: "The relation of man to this history is highly interesting. Thus, in all generalized points, his limbs are those of the primitive type, so common in the Eocene. He is plantigrade, has five toes, separated tarsals and carpals, short heel, rather flat astragalus, and neither hoofs nor claws, but something between the two; the bones of the forearm and leg are not so unequal as in the higher types, and remain entirely distinct from each other, and the ankle-joint is not so perfect as in many of them. In his teeth his character is thoroughly primitive. . ..

"His structural superiority consists solely in the complexity and size of his brain. A very important lesson is derived from these and kindred facts. The monkeys were anticipated in the greater fields of the world's activity by more powerful rivals. The ancestors of the ungulates held the fields and the swamps, and the Carnivora, driven by hunger, learned the arts and cruelties of the chase. The weaker ancestors of the Quadrumana possessed neither speed nor weapons of offense and defense, and nothing but an arboreal life was left them, where they developed the prehensile powers of the feet. Their digestive system unspecialized, their food various, their life the price of ceaseless vigilance, no wonder that their inquisitiveness and wakefulness were stimulated and developed, which is the condition of progressive intelligence"—adding that "the race has not been to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." Prof. Cope shows in this case that "the survival of the fittest has been the survival of the most intelligent, and natural selection proves to be, in its highest animal phase, intelligent selection."

Prof. Fiske has in a clearer way shown that when variations in intelligence became more important than variations in physical structure, then they were seized upon, to the relative exclusion of the latter.

It is intelligent strength, other things being equal, that conquers the savage, and the gradual selection of the best and biggest brains is not seen alone in man.

In one of the most significant discoveries of Prof. Marsh, the mammalia are found to show an increase in the size of the brain coincident with their succession in the rocks.

One of the most extraordinary mammals from the Tertiary beds of the West is the Dinoceras, with its rhinoceros and elephant characters, its skull ornamented with prominent tubercles, its unique