unobjectionable, that our Mississippi delta, soutb of the latitude ot
Baton Bouge, pertaining, of course, to the recent period, bas occupied
no less a time than 120,000 years in its formation. The particulars
of this computation I need not now trouble you with.
“ It is a very common occurrence that sweeping assertions are made
in palaeontology, based upon negative data. That is, because certain
classes or genera of organic remains have not yet been found in the
older fossiliferous strata, therefore they did not then exist on the face
of the earth or in its waters. I think this practice’is prolific in false
induction in science. The present tenants of our globe comprise perhaps
500,000 species of animals and plants. The organic species
preceding these, in former ages, were in all ages probably just about
as numerous. Palaeontologists have brought to light, from about 20
different and successive fossiliferous formations, about 20,000 species
of remains, nine-tenths of which, as from the nature of the case we
might expect, are of marine and aquatic origin. Now, the plants
and animals whose remains characterize these 20 formations, while
flourishing in their respective ages, were probably, in each of the 20
cases, as numerous in species as those contemporary with us. Aver-’
aging the known fossils to the formations, each of the twenty would
have 1000 species, which is only l-500th of what may fairly be supposed
to have existed. Admitting this reasoning as valid, two or
three instructive conclusions would flow from it. 1st. That doubtless
many species of animals and plants havé heretofore existed as
well as at present, that from their habitat and habit were rarely or
ever likely to be preserved as organic remains. 2d. There is no probability
that geologists are as yet acquainted with all, or even with
a fiftieth part of the organic remains entombed in the Various formations
constituting what may be called the rind qf our globe. 3d.
Assume at perfect random any one speeies, as for, instance an animal
analogous to the Ourang-Outang, the probability is 500 times greater that
such an animal existed at any geological age, also assumed at random,
than that his remains will, in our day, he found by geologists in the corresponding
formations. ’ ’377
Fossil man, of some inferior grade, is now the only thing wanting
to complete the palaeontological series in Europe, in order at once to
exhibit bimanes and quadrumanes in parallel fossil development;
and thereby to plant the genera Simiadæ and the genus Homo on one
and the same archaeological platform. Let us hope ! We actually
hold in our hands the short end of the thread, through the progna877
Annual Address read before the New Orleans Academy of Sciences, Feb. 25th, 1856, by
P r o f . J. L. R id d e l l , University of Louisiana, President of the Academy, p . 4 . [Intercalated
in my MS., at Philadelphia, 25th Jan. 1857.J
thous crania of inferior human races discovered, in the humatUe phase
over Be gium and Austria. Science now lacks but one, only one’
little fact more to terminate forever the question—“ have human fossil
remains been found ?
. -t®““ ’ I “ 7, there M margin for hope! Ma, be, (hat it is neither
m Europe no, m America that fossil humanity is to be »ought for
Perhaps, after all, the malicious aphorism whispered by Mephis-
topheles to Goethe a “ Pans,,- B $ ^ S S I
y o lu some turn out to be as true in geographical nala.
ontology as it is often in ethics, and oftener in J e n r i Z P
o a tenth part of Asia, not a twentieth part of Africa, has as yet
been explored by the geological pick-axe; the inlands of Borneo
Sumatra, New Guinea, have not yet been trodden by the white man’s
nd m m m to 1 1 1 to 3 3 3
and to rail-road operations, conducted only by the most civilized
races of the world, that, within the present quarter-century, the earth
begms to yield up her dead, and display her riches in organfr remains
When the iron network, such as the “peace of Paris” already stimucutta
1 8Prr T ®TeVa t0 the Amour’cutta from Jerusalem td Aden, from Cape To wfrno mto TLraekbei zUonnida mtod sCi a™land
from Algiers to the Senegambia, perchance to the Gaboon M
z possess many more fossii SB b and |
m m { ThlciPle ?f ^Presentation in the successive series of the
faunae of each zoological zone, it should be about Borneo that we
may expect to dig up fossil analogues of Orangs and Dyaks; about
l ! r r aa f gV h0Se °f Tr0gl0dy tes S a n d of Gorilla-gina, no
less than of some human precursors of present negro races. And
yet, up to this day, ten years after their discovery, not a livins-
S f i B K f\ r 1688 a f08Sil Sample’ °win£ t0 inaccessibility of theiri
abitats, has been procurable, even of the Gorilla, through French
or other colonists at the Gaboon !
Here, I may be allowed a digression, — not altogether irrelevant
because it aids to clear up doubts as to the earliest contact of the
baracenie Arabs, after their conquest of Barbary in the 7th century
f our era, with Negro nations; whom Arabian camels, then intrZ
^ c ed on a large scale into northern Africa, first enabled the
t S S S S Justul Perihes’
«Plorers’seem to doubt!8 M i * * * * * &e's von ^«'<"»«»;”-w h io b ’later
S w w S DDRB4U F IA Malm’ in Amales des Scien™ $ 8 j £ j