Those which I obtained from the
cavern at Bruniquel, and which are now exhibited in the Museum of
Natural History, were disinterred under circumstances more
satisfactorily determining their contemporaneity with the extinct
quadrupeds those cave-men killed and devoured than in any other spelaean
retreat which I have explored. They show neither "lower foreheads" nor
"higher bosses" than do the skulls of existing races of mankind.
Present evidence concurs in concluding that the modes of life and grades
of thought of the men who have left evidences of their existence at the
earliest periods hitherto discovered and determined, were such as are
now observable in "savages," or the human races which are commonly so
called.
The industry and pains now devoted to the determination of the physical
characters of such races, to their ways of living, their tools and
weapons, and to the relations of their dermal, osteal, and dental
modifications to those of the mammals which follow next after _Bimana_
in the descensive series of mammalian orders, are exemplary.
The present phase of the quest may be far from the bourn to yield
hereafter trustworthy evidence of the origin of man; but, meanwhile,
exaggerations and misstatements of acquired grounds ought especially to
be avoided.
* * * * *
THE ABA OR ODIKA.
By W.
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