The Descent of Man

hous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked
(18. 'Anthropological Review,' April
1867, p. 236.), will no doubt be exterminated.
The break between man and his nearest allies
will then be wider, for it will intervene between
man in a more civilised state, as we may hope,
even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low
as a baboon, instead of as now between the
negro or Australian and the gorilla.
With respect to the absence of fossil remains,
serving to connect man with his ape-like progenitors,
no one will lay much stress on this
fact who reads Sir C. Lyell's discussion (19. 'Elements
of Geology,' 1865, pp. 583- 585. 'Antiquity
of Man,' 1863, p. 145.), where he shews
that in all the vertebrate classes the discovery of
fossil remains has been a very slow and fortuitous
process. Nor should it be forgotten that
those regions which are the most likely to afford
remains connecting man with some extinct