Evidence as to Man's Place in NatureHuxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Apes; Evolution; Human beings -- Origin
[Footnote 17: 'Boston Journal of Natural History', vol. i., 1834.]
[Footnote 18: The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, measured, when
standing upright, 4 ft.; but he mentions having just received news of
the capture of an Orang 5 ft. 3 in. high. Schlegel and Juller say that
their largest old male measured, upright, 1.25 Netherlands "el"; and
from the crown to the end of the toes, 1.5 el; the circumference of the
body being about 1 el. The largest old female was 1.09 el high, when
standing. The adult skeleton in the College of Surgeons' Museum, if set
upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown to sole. Dr. Humphry
gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height of two Orangs. Of seventeen Orangs
examined by Mr. Wallace, the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. high, from the heel
to the crown of the head. Mr. Spencer St. John, however, in his 'Life
in the Forests of the Far East', tells us of an Orang of "5 ft. 2 in.,
measuring fairly from the head to the heel," 15 in. across the face, and
12 in. round the wrist. It does not appear, however, that Mr. St. John
measured this Orang himself.]
[Footnote 19: See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant "Orang-utan,"
in the 'Annals of Natural History' for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided his
interesting charge with an artificial mother of buffalo-skin, but the
cheat was too successful. The infant's entire experience led it
to associate teats with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent its
existence in vain endeavours to discover the former.]
[Footnote 20: "They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey
tribe, and their motions are surprisingly awkward and uncouth."--Sir
James Brooke, in the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society', 1841.]
[Footnote 21: Mr. Wallace's account of the progression of the Orang
almost exactly corresponds with this.]
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