Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 692», sayfa 4

FOSSIL MEN

Men of science in their eagerness to support a theory are apt to fall into mistakes. They reason honestly enough, but from too narrow a basis of facts. For example, the skeleton of a man is found imbedded in limestone. That man must have lived in the geological period, long before the commencement of human record. This theory looks well, but is not satisfactory. We do not know at what time the limestone, which was originally a loose substance, assumed the rocky form. There is a case in point.

At the western end of the geological galleries of the British Museum may be seen a human skeleton imbedded in a block of limestone brought from Guadeloupe. At first sight this would seem to be a silent but unimpeachable witness to the remote antiquity of our race. On investigation, however, the fossil man is found to be in this point of view a bearer of most unreliable testimony. All fossils are not necessarily very old, and this skeleton is comparatively a modern one. The limestone in which it is imbedded is a very rapidly formed deposit of corals and small shells bound together by a kind of natural calcareous cement. The remains are those of an Indian, whose death is placed by some authorities at as recent a period as two hundred years ago. The same rock often contains remains of unmistakably recent origin. In England a coin of Edward I. has been found imbedded in it; in France a cannon buried in this hard stone was quarried out of a deposit on the lower Rhone.

Another 'fossil man' was found at Denise in Auvergne. The bones were beneath the hardened lava stream of an extinct volcano, and it was alleged that the volcanoes of Auvergne had not been active since the Christian era, as Julius Cæsar had actually encamped among them. This view was put forward more than thirty years ago. Since then, a more careful investigation of local history has proved that there were serious volcanic disturbances in Auvergne as late as the fifth century; and further, it appears that the original position of the buried man is very doubtful, as there has been a landslip on the spot.

In 1848 some human bones were found imbedded in the rocks on the shores of Lake Monroe in Florida. It was reported at the time that the rock was a coralline limestone; and on this basis Agassiz and Lyell assigned to the fossil men an age of at least ten thousand years. But the claim to this venerable antiquity was unfortunately exploded by a discovery which shewed that the evidence on which it rested was false. Pourtalès, the original discoverer, came forward to rectify the mistake. The rock in which the bones lay was not the old coralline limestone of Florida, but a recent fresh-water sandstone, which contains (besides the bones) large numbers of shells of precisely the same species as those still indigenous to the lake.

So far we have dealt only with errors resulting from imperfect information or too hastily drawn inferences. But there are cases in which, as we have said, an uneducated man has succeeded in deceiving a geologist in his own special line of study. The well-known jaw of Moulin Quignon is a case in point. Every one has heard of M. Boucher de Perthes' careful exploration of the gravels of the Somme Valley, which resulted in the discovery of thousands of flint implements, the handiwork of primitive man in Western Europe. But up to 1863 M. Boucher de Perthes had found no human remains in the gravel, though it had been predicted that such would be found; and he was naturally anxious to make the discovery. He had offered a reward for this purpose to the workmen of the different gravel-pits in the valley. Several attempts had been made to deceive him with false discoveries, but in every case his special knowledge had saved him from falling into a trap. At length he and many others with him were completely deceived by the cunning of a workman. In 1863 a quarryman at Moulin Quignon, near Abbeville, came to M. Boucher de Perthes with the news that he had laid bare a human bone in the gravel. He had left it undisturbed, in order that the professor might himself examine it in situ, and explore the surrounding deposit for further remains. M. de Perthes and some of his friends went to the spot. Half imbedded in the gravel – a bed of pebbles stained a dull red by the presence of iron in the deposit – they found a human jawbone with several teeth still in position, the whole stained like the surrounding gravel. Close by was a flint hatchet.

As soon as the news of the discovery reached England, a number of English men of science visited Abbeville. To the doubts which they expressed as to the genuineness of the discovery, M. de Perthes replied that he had himself removed the jawbone from the undisturbed bed of gravel, and that the workmen who had uncovered it were men of irreproachable character. Two conferences of French and English geologists were held, one at Paris, the other at Abbeville; the bone and teeth were carefully examined; and though many were not fully satisfied, the general impression was that the discovery was a genuine one. M. de Quatrefages expressed his opinion that it might be regarded as 'the first human fossil ever discovered except in a cave.' But among the English geologists there were some who were not so easily convinced. One of the teeth was brought to London and subjected to microscopical examination; and it was shewn that there were no signs of mineral infiltration into its structure. The tooth was like one from a recent grave. The jawbone when sawn across at Paris had emitted the odour of fresh bone. It was pointed out that the edges of the flints found with it were quite sharp and fresh; there were no signs of rounding or rolling in an ancient river. The workmen were watched. It was discovered that they occasionally found means to introduce flint implements of modern manufacture into the gravel. It was observed too that the reddish deposit on the bone could easily be imparted to the surface of bones and flints by artificial means. Suspicion was thus aroused in many quarters, when Mr Busk opened a Celtic grave not far from Moulin Quignon, and there found the skeleton of a Gaulic warrior minus the lower jawbone. The famous jaw of Moulin Quignon was all that was needed to make the skeleton a perfect one. For most men this has settled the question of the non-authenticity of the discovery. But some still believe in it.

Another famous fossil is the 'Calaveras Skull,' alleged to have been found one hundred and fifty feet deep in the shaft of a gold mine at Angelos, in Calaveras County, California. The skull is said to have come from the gold-bearing gravel; and in the strata above are no less than five beds of lava and other volcanic rocks. Professor Whitney secured the skull for the Museum of the Californian Geological Survey; but he was not the actual discoverer, and there is a pretty general impression that he was 'hoaxed.' Dr Andrews of Chicago investigated the matter, and gives evidence that the skull was taken by two of the miners from a cave in the valley, and placed in the gravel where it was found with a view to hoax the officers of the Survey; and this would explain the fact that there are well-marked traces of stalagmite upon the skull. This 'discovery' it was that suggested to the Californian humorist Bret Harte the idea of his amusing Address to a Fossil Skull. Many of our readers are doubtless already familiar with it; they will pardon our quoting a few lines for those who are not. The poet's exordium is a solemn one:

 
Speak, O man less recent! fragmentary fossil!
Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,
Hid in lowest depths below the earliest stratum
Of volcanic tufa.
 
 
Older than the beasts, the oldest Palæotherium;
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami;
Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions
Of earth's epidermis!
 

He begs the skull to tell its story: what was its epoch; did its former possessor behold 'the dim and watery woodland' of the carboniferous times; or did he live when 'cheerful pterodactyls' might have circled over his head. An answer was vouchsafed to him.

 
Even as I gazed, a thrill of the maxilla,
And a lateral movement of the condyloid process,
With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication
Ground the teeth together;
 
 
And from that imperfect dental exhibition,
Stained with expressed juices of the weed Nicotian,
Came those hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs
Of expectoration:
 
 
'Which my name is Bowers! and my crust was busted
Falling down a shaft in Calaveras County;
But I'd take it kindly if you'd send the pieces
Home to old Missouri!'
 

The bone-caves have of course yielded numbers of ancient skulls – most of them, be it noted, very well developed, and many superior to savage skulls of the present day. The strangely deformed skull of the Neanderthal Valley (found near Düsseldorf) is thought by many to have been that of an idiot. It stands unique among ancient skulls. Even the famous skull of the Engis cavern near Liège, is said by Professor Huxley to have 'no mark of degradation about any part of its structure. It is in fact,' he continues, 'a fair average skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.'

But we must stop here, or we shall drift into the controversy on primitive man – rather too wide a subject to enter upon here. Let us merely note that among all the remains that we possess of primitive man, we have no vestiges of that ape-man or man-ape which figures so prominently in certain modern theories of the origin of man.

SUCH OLD FRIENDS
A STORY

CHAPTER I. – COUNTRY LIFE

The century was much younger, but it had passed its stormy infancy. Just as after a stormy night we take down the shutters and let in the light and rejoice in the calm of the dawn, so the country was beginning to breathe freely after the long years of agitation it had known. Peace was turning men's thoughts homewards, and there were even spirits daring enough to suggest that the very constitution of England itself needed patching up, or perhaps entirely renovating; scientific men were talking of the wonderful power of steam; but meantime ordinary mortals were content with the road, and were very proud of their 'High-flyers.' People were not so used to novelties then as we are now, and 'newfangled' was frequently the verdict on them, given with severity and even distrust. The far-spreading ocean of Time rubs off points and sharp corners, and leaves them smooth and rounded, and ready to fit in. But the eddies had scarcely yet stirred our far-off west county village. Once a week indeed, the Squire had a newspaper, which he lent to the Rector, who gave the benefit of it to some of his parishioners in his calls before passing it on to the doctor; and so news slowly circulated. It was such a quiet spot; the Parsonage and the Hall nestled lovingly together, with the Church like a link between; a small apology for a village was tucked close under the hill; and a few farms and homesteads scattered here and there completed the parish. But such a wealth of broad fair meadows and laden orchards lay around! The upland fields were bleaker and more stubborn, but the growth of purple heather covered many deficiencies, at least to the eye of the lover of beauty; and the all-bountiful Hand that planted the earth had crowned the ridges of hills with trees. Such trees, so grand and calm and stately in their growth! Winter had the hardest possible fight to rob them of their last robes; even November, whose sky is proverbially 'chill and drear' – November, whose 'leaf is red and sear,' found them in a perfect sunset glory, from gold to deepest purple.

'I do not believe there are any trees like ours,' exclaimed Dorothy Linley; and I think she ought to know, for she had lived with them all her life – not that it was a very long life either when our, or rather her story begins. She had scarcely seen a score of years; but things look bright and sharply defined seen through the clear atmosphere of youth. It was no wonder that she thought so on this afternoon as she stood at the open window, looking up the long avenue of pink-and-white horse-chestnuts, while the air was fragrant with the May from the tree on the lawn. It was not a mere afternoon tea, but the real meal that was laid in the Rectory drawing-room. In those days the article itself was costly but good, and they drank it out of tiny cups. Some had been handed down from a former generation and had no handles, others of more modern make had. Dorothy's mother was sitting at the table, surveying with a little pleased satisfaction its hospitable spread of country dainties prepared under her own eye, if not with her own hands. They were expecting a guest – Madam from the Hall. Mrs Linley's hands were never idle; the whole parish could bear witness to her 'notableness;' and her daughters were considered models of 'bringing up.'

'You would not have liked to live in the town where you were born, my dear,' she said in answer to Dorothy's exclamation; then suffering her work to drop into her lap, she looked beyond the slight figure at the window, away through the chestnuts, far back into the past. 'I thought as you do when first I walked up this avenue carrying you, an infant, in my arms. Your father and I had had a hard struggle – his means were so small as a curate, and he tried in vain to increase them by teaching – those were such terrible times; bread was almost at famine price; and I have sat with windows and doors bolted and barred, trembling to hear the people in the streets, for bread-riots were not uncommon. Everything was taxed, even the light that came in at the windows; so many of them were closed up, making the houses dark and gloomy. We could hardly believe it, when your father's cousin Kent Linley, whom he had not seen for years, wrote to say that the family "living" was vacant, and sooner than give it to a stranger, he offered it to him.'

'It must have been like a glimpse of Paradise, mother.'

'It was; for your father's health was giving way under the strain. He would have it that you, our first child, born just when our troubles were greatest, were the herald of the peace that was coming; and when he gave you his mother's name, he called you also Olive. You were the first he christened at the little church here, and "Dorothy Olive" the first name he wrote on the parish register.'

'Was Madam at the Hall then?' asked her daughter.

'No; the Squire brought home his bride two years later, before your sister was born; and Mrs Melton used to come and see us very often. As you know, she gave Juliet her own name. We thought it rather fanciful, but could not refuse so kind a friend.' Mrs Linley looked up and smiled as the owner of it entered the room – a younger copy of herself, small, and with the same sweet tender eyes.

'Mother dear,' said the new-comer, seating herself beside her, 'do you know what it is my godmother is coming to talk about this afternoon?'

'No, my child: perhaps some parish matter.'

'Perhaps,' said Dorothy from the window, 'it may be the long-talked-of visit to London.'

'Oh, if it should!' cried Juliet, her face flushing with delight at the thought.

'Well, we shall not have long to wait,' answered their mother, laying down her work; 'for I hear the wheels coming up the avenue;' and the Squire's large roomy carriage, drawn by its two sleek well-fed horses, drawing up to the door, they all rose to receive their guest.