Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/531

Rh definition "rational animal" in any higher sense than a dog or an ape does.

There is no reason to suppose that the genus homo was confined to Europe in the Pleistocene age; it is much more probable that this, like other mammalian genera of that period, was spread over a large extent of the surface of the globe. At that time, in fact, the climate of regions nearer the equator must have been far more favorable to the human species; and it is possible that, under such conditions, it may have attained a higher development than in the north. As to where the genus homo originated, it is impossible to form even a probable guess. During the Miocene epoch, one region of the present temperate zones would serve as well as another. The elder Agassiz long ago tried to prove that the well-marked areas of geographical distribution of mammals have their special kinds of men; and, though this doctrine can not be made good to the extent which Agassiz maintained, yet the limitation of the Australian type to New Holland, the approximate restriction of the negro type to ultra-Saharal Africa, and the peculiar character of the population of Central and South America, are facts which bear strongly in favor of the conclusion that the causes which have influenced the distribution of mammals in general have powerfully affected that of man.

Let it be supposed that the human remains from the caves of the Neanderthal and of Spy represent the race, or one of the races, of men who inhabited Europe in the Quaternary epoch, can any connection be traced between it and existing races? That is to say, do any of them exhibit characters approximating those of the Spy men or other examples of the Neanderthaloid race? Put in the latter form, I think that the question may be safely answered in the affirmative. Skulls do occasionally approach the Neanderthaloid type, among both the brunet and the blond long-head races. For the former, I pointed out the resemblance, long ago, in some of the Irish river-bed skulls. For the latter, evidence of various kinds may be adduced; but I prefer to cite the authority of one of the most accomplished and cautious of living anthropologists. Prof. Virchow was led, by historical considerations, to think that the Teutonic type, if it still remained pure and undefiled anywhere, should be discoverable among the Frisians, in their ancient island home on the north German coast, remote from the great movement of nations. In their tall stature and blond complexion the Frisians fulfilled expectation, but their skulls differed in some respects from those of the neighboring blond longheads. The depression, or flattening (accompanied by a slight increase in breadth), which occurs occasionally among the latter, is regular and characteristic among the Frisians; and in other respects, the Frisian skull unmistakably approaches the