A New Relationship to the Monkey.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 17 July 1914, Page 2

A New Relationship to the Monkey.

In the early days of Darwinism the question of the evolution of man was constantly misrepresented, as though it had been made to appear that man is descended from a monkey. For fifty years zoologists and biologists have been industriously explaining that the succession was not direct, but that man was descended Irom the root stock of the primates, of which the apes were a distinct branch. Now, as soon as that

more correct way of stating our ancestry comes to lie fully understood, there has been discovered a new relationship between man and ape which bridges the gap and makes the old popular idea seem nearer to the truth than the scientific statement.

Like a great, many modern discoveries, the factors are highly technical, but the broad outlines serve to reveal in a general way the importance of the discovery. One of the principal differences between miin, an(] the lower animals has been in the actual cell processes that happen in the building up of the

body. These changes, or metabolism, are really fundamental to life, and are the evidence of life. So that, when a large difference appears between man and the animals in the important basic fact of life, the diversity is really far greater than in some outward appearance that would showi far more, in this particular case uric acid is the peculiar product considered, acid is a product which is principally peculiar to man—the breaking up of certain bases, known as purins —producing in the other animals an entirely different stage, known as allantoin. Even in the common monkey the macacus—which is largely used in laboratory experiments —this difference exists, and the same is true of the baboon. But a long series of experiments, conducted in the most careful and scientific way by Dr. Wiechowski, of Prague, have resulted in the proving of the fact that the chimpanzee, one of the anthropoid apes, shares with .man this power of producing uric acid. As this product is shrewdly suspected to have some relationship to rheumatism—though only in certain types of that disease—it is doubtful whether the chimpanzee is to be congratulated upon his possessing this human characteristic, but it places him in the highest group, even above his fellow-anthropoids, the orangoutang and the gorilla.

It has for some years beeh known that the anthropoid apes showed a close comparison with man in their blood characteristics,, especially in the preparation of serum, for precipitins which have been prepared with especial significance to> man are equally available for the anthropoid apes, though utterly unapplicable to the monkey. But the discovery of a bridge over the gap between man and ape in the important branch of metabolism is a missing link of far more importance than a primitive ape-human skeleton would be. It welds, even more tightly, the wonderful claim whereby all living beings are drawn together in the eternal struggle upward.—" London Budget."

An old Glamorganshire farmer, well-known for his philanthropic propensities, was lacking somewhat in education. When asked by the local Methodists to subscribe towards a new chandelier for the chapel, he thrust his hand into his pocket with a good-natured remark, and, pulling out a sovereign, replied :— "Well, here's a pound towards it. But who is going to play it when we get it ?" In a small town theatre a soldier, arriving late, found all the cheaper seats occupied ; so, seeing a few of the more expensive places vacant, he made towards them. " Here, where are you going ?" called an attendant after him. " Where am I going ?" replied the man, cheerfully. " Where a good soldier should go—to the front, of course."

The average depth of the Mediterranean is 1300 yards.