speck when compared with the pre-historic period. That man has lived through many great changes on the surface of the earth is not a theory of the present day; the opinion seems to have been held by philosophic observers of an early age. Thus, Mohamed-born Mohamed Kaswini, of a race, as his name implies, by no means remarkable for a tendency to scientific pursuits, thus expresses himself. Mohamed seems to have lived in the seventh age of the Hegira, i. e., towards the close of the thirteenth of our era. He wrote a book on the wonders of nature, and in it he thus expresses himself.

6

"In passing one day by a very ancient and extremely populous city, I asked of one of the inhabitants who founded their city?' He replied to me, I know not, and our ancestors knew no more than we do on this point.' Five hundred years afterwards, passing by the same place, I could not perceive a trace of the city. Inquiring of one of the peasants about the place, when it was that the city was destroyed;' he answered me, what an odd question you put to me, this country has never been otherwise than as you see it now.' I returned there after another five hundred years, and I found in the place of the country I had seen—a sea. I now asked of the fishermen, how long it was since their country became a sea,' and he replied, 'that a person like me ought to know that it had always been a sea.' I returned again after five hundred years; the sea had disappeared and it was now dry land; no one knew what had become of the sea, or if such a thing had ever existed. Finally, I returned once more after another five hundred years, and I again found a flourishing city. The people told me that the origin of their city was lost in the night of time."

These are some of the revolutions to which the living world has been in all times exposed; it is almost needless to say, that they depend on physical and material causes, and are the natural effects of influences set in motion by the inherent qualities of matter.

ON THE APPLICATION OF THE ANATOMICAL METHOD TO THE DISCRIMINATION OF SPECIES.

BY THE LATE R. KNOX, M.D., F.R.S.E.

(From the Medical Times and Gazette, March 14th, 1863.)

THE discovery of true descriptive anatomy, and its application to all classes of the zoological kingdom, led the illustrious Cuvier to the discovery of the fossil world. Many distinguished observers had

previously, no doubt, made some happy conjectures respecting the antiquity of the fossil world, and the advantages to be derived from the application of the anatomical method in the discrimination of species. Daubenton, Vicq d'Azyr, and Pinel, in France; Pallas, Blumenbach, and others, in Germany; Hunter, in England, had long prior to the era of Cuvier discovered and appreciated the utility of anatomical inquiry in zoology; but the credit of having placed this method on a new basis, and of having demonstrated by its means the true nature of the fossil world, belongs, unquestionably, to Cuvier. As many observations and hypotheses have been ascribed erroneously to this illustrious man, and more especially in England, it seems best to ascertain in the first place his own opinions of the value of the method he had discovered.

In the fossil world, those external characters by which an animal species is at once discriminated from all others, had been, with but few exception, wholly destroyed. I allude more especially to the animals we call mammals; and thus, if the species of these fossil animals were to be discovered at all, it could only be done through their osteological remains, including the teeth. The plan succeeded admirably, and led to the most astounding discoveries by Cuvier. As was to be expected, it threw the Linnean method into the shade, and all but extinguished the reputation of the greatest naturalist of any age, the Count de Buffon. It led Cuvier imperceptibly, and seemingly, without his being aware of it, to the adoption of some theories or hypotheses still maintained in England, but abandoned everywhere else. One of these was the attempt to prove distinct epochs of zoological formations, called in this country "creations," a word never used by Cuvier. As a strictly scientific man, he strenuously opposed the philosophical ideas of Goethe and his school, declaring them to be pantheistic, and not scientific; he denied an animal series, and refused to intercalate the extinct with the living world. Species he held to be unchangeable, under every circumstance, and, drawing his proofs from monumental and written records, he showed that the living animal kingdom had remained unaltered since the earliest historic period. To man and to the now living world he ascribed a late origin, as compared with the fossil and extinct. Shortly before his death his theory of the fixity of species was called in question by Goethe and Geoffroy St. Hilaire; the animal serial was demonstrated by De Blainville, and the fossil intercalated with the living world; the metamorphosis of forms was proved, beyond all dispute, by embryogeny, and the philosophic and transcendental

theories of Goethe came to be accepted for scientific truths, and embryonic forms were supposed to pourtray the extinct or fossil world. But even Cuvier himself was aware that anatomical characters could not in every instance characterize species; and he instanced the genus Equus, or natural family of the horse, whose species cannot be distinguished from each other by the anatomical method; he might have mentioned many others. How is it with the natural family of man-with mankind?

As most natural zoological families show affiliations with other families, and do not stand alone, it seems proper to inquire, in the first instance, into the relation of mankind with other kinds, that is, other families of animals. Notwithstanding a tolerably strong resemblance between man and the animals usually, but erroneously, as I think, called quadrumana, or four-handed, there is a sharplydefined and deep gulf between these two great natural families. They differ remarkably in their external characters, and equally so in their osteological; and, although it be true that the brain in these two classes is almost identical in its forms, and that the retina in the apes of the old continent, has the foramen of Soemmering, a structure, perhaps, peculiar to man, there is yet enough to show that it requires many natural families to bridge over the gulf which exists beween them, or, in other words, to fill up the serial. Now, the researches of De Blainville lead us to conjecture, with every show of probability, that the wanting links will be supplied herafter-1. By palæontological discoveries of animals lower than man, yet above the apes; or, 2. By the formation of other species in the course of time, when the existing order of things shall have passed away, following the fate of all its predecessors.

The determination of distinct species in mankind can be made only on the same principles we employ in determining species in other natural families. The characters are either external or anatomical. We have seen that the anatomical method failed in Cuvier's hands when applied to the natural family Equus, and De Blainville showed that it also failed in many other instances. Should it fail when applied to man, I shall not be in the least surprised; for, although it be certain, as I think, that the internal structures differ essentially in every species from all others, yet it is obvious that such differences are

The most modern examples of fossil anthropoid ape with which we are acquainted are the Dryopithecus and Pliopithecus of the Miocene, probably allied to the existing Hylobates. The forms which are discovered in the newer or Pliocene beds are allied to the Semnopitheci and Macaci of India. Borneo and the Gaboon have not yet been geologically surveyed. (ED. Anthropo. Review.)

not sufficiently strong to be readily recognized, and therefore, are of little value to the zoologist, and of no importance to mankind generally, who ever have, and ever must look to the exterior alone. Thus, Blumenbach was wrong, as I think, when he attached so much importance to the configuration of the human cranium, thus inducing many persons to suppose that a distinctness of species was only to be determined by constant specific differences in the form of that section of the skeleton. That such differences exist I believe; but even if they did not, this were no argument against the specific differences in the races of man, for it is to the external characters mainly that we must look for specific distinctions. Supposing the Jewish race to have become extinct, and no monumental or other artistic productions have recorded their physiognomy; who, from their osteological remains, could have described the race, or guessed at those physical and moral characteristics which distinguish them in so marked a manner from all other races ?

The skeleton of the head, usually spoken of as the skull or cranium, encloses and protects the encephalon. It has relations externally with powerful muscles, and its inner table is in harmony with the external surface of the encephalon. The capacity of the cranium, properly so-called, may generally be assumed to be the measure of the encephalon, to which, however, even in mammals, there is one exception-certain cetacea. Besides providing cavities for the protection of certain organs of sense, it articulates with the vertebral column, of which it seems but the continuation. Goethe first used the expression "cranial vertebræ,"* and its correctness is now all but universally admitted. Between its tables we find osseous cavities, with prolongations into them of the mucous membranes of the nose and pharynx; the uses of these sinuses are absolutely unknown.f They are also wanting in the cetacea.

Now, when we look at the form of the skeleton of the head in the various races of men, it is easy to observe that they differ remarkably from each other, not so much in the capacity of the cranium, as in the shape or configuration of the skull and face, and in the relations of the face to the cranium, differences still more remarkable during

This expression was rather used first by Lorenz Oken, in 1806, who, speaking of a deer's skull which he had found in the forest, exclaimed "Es ist eine wirbelsaeule!" (it is a vertebral column.) Goethe's memoir, claiming the right to the discovery, after it had been successfully established in Europe, was not published till 1820, a fact which the recent publication of posthumously issued letters, of doubtful authenticity, does not overthrow. (ED. Authropo. Review.) + Dr. Knox always denied the generalization that the absence of the frontal sinus was a constant character of the Papuan race. (ED. Anthropo. Review.)

life. This difference in form was first observed by Hippocrates, and ascribed by him to artificial pressure of the head of the child, which practice being continued for some generations, the malformations, at last, became hereditary. But the artificially deformed feet of Chinese women have never become hereditary. So that the theory of Hippocrates seems, at least, extremely doubtful. Blumenbach himself doubted if these differences in the configuration of the human skull were constant; the candid Prichard denied that they were, and he has been followed lately by others-Williamson, Owen, etc. In respect of the capacity of the cranium, Dr. Tiedemann fancied that he had found in my own museum several crania of African Negroes quite as large and as finely proportioned as the highest of the white races. Out of the exceptions he established a law, and in this he has been followed by others. But if such variations in form were frequent and permanent, the race would in a century or two become entirely altered: now this, we know, never has happened. Such varieties extend only to a generation or two, and then cease, the primordial forms returning-those forms, namely, which are in unison with nature's great scheme and with the existing order of things. Not that there is or can be any selection, as Mr. Darwin expresses it, Nature is not an intelligent being, and, therefore, there can be no selection, properly speaking. Again, if varieties in any one race were numerous and frequently occurring, this circumstance surely ought to have told upon races favourably situated in other respects; yet, in so far as I can perceive, in examin‣ ing the monumental records of Egypt, the Copt and Negro have remained unaltered for at least six thousand years. The same law seems to hold good with other races so long as they do not abandon their aboriginal land. When this happens, they perish.

The exceptions so much dwelt on by Prichard, Williamson, Owen, and others, have been greatly exaggerated. They have no influence over the exterior, and probably none over the intellectual qualities of the race; whilst against the hereditary extension of these varieties stands the physiological law of non-vitality and extinction. Many years ago I remarked that varieties in the distribution of the arteries, implying other varieties in structure, were much more common in the very young than in the adult, implying, as I thought, a want of vitality or of viability in these individuals. Thus, nature checks the extension of all important varieties in structure, the individuals being either non-viable or non-productive. This accidental approximation of the individuals of any race to another seems wholly to be without any real results, otherwise hybrids, amongst such, might be fertile.