Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/756

736 Again, while much speculation has been had in respect to the origin and use of the mounds of our Western and Southwestern States, it seems to have been overlooked that almost the exact counterparts of these mounds exist to-day in the earth-pyramid of Cholula, near Puebla, and the two pyramids of Teotihuacan, about fifty miles east of the city of Mexico; and that those structures were in use for religious rites and purposes—i.e., "mound-worship"—at the time of the invasion of the country by the Spaniards under Cortes. It seems difficult, therefore, to avoid also this further inference, that there is an intimate connection as to origin and use between all these North American mound-structures, and that they are all the work of substantially one and the same people, who found their last development and, perhaps, origin in Mexico or Central America. In calling attention to these circumstances, and in venturing opinions concerning them, the writer makes no pretension to archaeological knowledge, but he simply offers what seem to him the simple, common-sense conclusions which every observer must come to, who does not bring to his eye a capacity for seeing what has been limited by some preconceived theories.

 

N the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the orang-outang the external form is subject to essential modifications, according to the age and sex. The difference between the sexes is most strongly marked in the gorilla, and these differences are least apparent in the gibbon.

When a young male gorilla is compared with an aged animal of the same species, we are almost tempted to believe that we have to do with two entirely different creatures. While the young male still displays an evident approximation to the human structure, and develops in its bodily habits the same qualities which generally characterize the short-tailed apes of the Old World, with the exception of the baboon, the aged male is otherwise formed. In the latter case the points of resemblance to the human type are far fewer; the aged animal has become a gigantic ape, retaining indeed in the structure of his hands and feet the characteristics of the primates, while the protruding head is something between the muzzle of the baboon, the bear, and the boar. Simultaneously with these remarkable alterations of the external structure there occurs a modification of the skeleton. The skull of an aged male gorilla becomes more prognathous, and the incisor teeth have 