In this respect there is little difference in races. The fall is almost as rapid in the white as in any other race. The passion for hunting and fishing, even in the most civilized nations, indicates how strong remains the tendency to forsake a cultured for a wild life, and how powerful are the impulses inherited from ancestors who for hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps, subsisted by these means.
From Osseous support these lines of argument, the oldest bony remains of man indicate an inferiority to the present race. The most authentic of these are— r. The Neanderthal Skull (pl. 2, figs. 2-4).—This was found in a cavern near Dfisseldorf iu 1856, in a diluvial stratum, and associated with bones of extinct species and parts of a human skeleton. The character of this skull is most striking. There is no forehead, the superciliary ridges are excessively developed, the bones are thick and heavy, the head elliptical, the sutures are nearly all consolidated, and the occipital region very protuberant. The head is therefore notably long in propor tion to its width, or " dolichocephalic." The capacity is 1220 cubic centimetres.
2. The Skull from Belgium (pl. 2, figs. 6, is believed
to be of later date than that from the Neanderthal cave. It also is markedly oblong, with prominent superciliary ridges and prolonged and rather flattened occiput. It undoubtedly belonged to a low type of humanity.
3. The Jaw of La Nall/ale (p1. 1, fig. 7).—This was also discovered in Belgium, in the cave called "La Trott de la Naulette," near Dinant. It is a part of a solid and heavy lower jaw, retreating like that of an ape. The molar teeth, instead of diminishing as they proceed toward the angle of the jaw, as in man, increase in size. At the median line of the internal curve of the bone, where in man there is a small protuber ance serving for the attachment of an important muscle of the tongue, the genioglossus, there is, instead of this protuberance, an actual depression, as in the monkeys. This has been held to indicate that the owner of this jaw could not articulate any known form of human speech ; and this human bone has been pronounced " the most ape like that has ever been discovered" (De Mortillet). It was asso ciated with remains of the elephant and rhinoceros, and belonged therefore to a very ancient type of man.