New Britain Herald Newspaper, July 13, 1929, Page 13

e e Little Paula Longworth, Shown Here with Her Famous Mother, Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, Receives No More Careful Attention, Say Scientists, Than N'Gi, Infant Gorilla. just another monkey, and no missing link at all. As a matter of fact, one of the fore- most of the lot, a very famous biologist, says there is no such thing as a missing link. He is Dr. Austin H. Clark, of the Smithgonian Institution, whose recent paper in a dignified logical journal published by Johns Hopkins University has set the stage for the battle of the cenary over this question of God or Gorilla, as Prof. Alfred McCann, S. J., of Fordham Univers Dr. Clark holds that man has always been man, and monk: that never twain have met since the first man and the first monkey were created or sprang into being or ap- peared on the scene. Here is how Dr. Clark states the case for the monkey- men: “We have formed a mental picture of life growing like a tree, its roots buried in the slime of Archaen beaches and its highest ches represented by ourselwas This tree picture seems to have become a bit of scientific scripture. Advocates of Evolution Face Biggest Fight. “From the first there have been doubters. The tree picture calls for a continual growth from lower to higher forms of life. There can be no gaps in the growth. The gaps in the scientific record—the ‘missing links'— have been filled in either by assump- tions or by fossil evidence of ques- tionable validity. “In our scientific dogmatism we have been inclined to dismiss those who insisted on ques- tioning the assumptions or the evidence as ‘cranks.” We have been too busy hurling epithets at them to do the one logical thing— retrace the path of life through time.” Dr. Clark does not rest his case on a mere hypothesis of his own. He gives facts and draws conclusions from those facts, as we shall see further on. Those scientists who will discuss his paper with you shyly admit that he has posed the biggest argument the evolution advocates have to face, for it comes not from fundamentalists like Bryan or John Roach Straton, but from their own fireside. He is their man, and no man among them has a higher rating than he. Right now they are giving him the silent treatment. One of them was asked what he thought of Dr. Clark’s paper. “Do you accept his rea- soning?” was the way the question was put to him. “Not at all. My thinking has all been done along the other line,” he answered. Returning to Dr. Clark’s theory, which he says is not new but a restatement of an early theory proposed by Hugo de Vries, the Dutch botanist. After discussing the different species of land and sea life and the changes each undergoes within its kind—- this is the mutation theory— he goes on: “It is well to emphasize the fact that every developmental line has certain gaps. Some have these gaps large and broad, while in others, as for instance in the horses, the gaps are relatively small. But they are always ther They are, therefore, natural, and not due to a deficiency in the record.” ay he Most mporiant Bal)u In America IS —a 62/777 One Savant Has Upset Their Pet Theories So They Depend INTERESTED IN N'GI Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, Eminent Anthropologist, V/ho Regards the Scientific Study of the Baby Gorilla as Even More Important Than the Anti-Evolution Paper of His Colleague, Dr. Austin H. Clark, of Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Hrdlicka Is Shown Here with Two Gorilla Brains from His Extensive Collections. to the human brain. The National Museum is not the only BIRTHDAY PROMENADE MOVING DAY Frank Lowe, Monkey Keeper at National Zoological Park, Washington, D Transporting N'Gi from His Old Quarters to a New Cage, Where He Can Be Better Studied. one that has been laid out on the evo- Bimbo,” Accompanied by a Phiadelphia Girl, Out for a lutionary program. Every one in the world has been so arranged. Dr. Clark’s theory chall ment, and it 1 teaching of the school of evoluti h\ If challenge is taken up, as it of all th seems destined to be, for he is as much like a father, authority as an loves to have h be the g ap the r d s back nce has ever n. Modern r & he scrat: 2y “BIMBO'S” BOTTLE This Amusing and Instructive Photo, Taken at the Philadelphia Zoo, Shows a Little Anthropoid Immigrant from the African Jungle Enjoying His Nightly Swig of Milk. “Bimbo” Is Scarcely Less Widely Known Than N'Gi. 'GI at this particular moment is N the most important, if not the most famous baby in America. Not even Paula Longworth, Alice Roosevelt’s baby, receives better at- tention than is being given this gorilla child from the jungles of Africa. A noted baby specialist visits him regu- larly and watches his growth; his meals are prepared with meticulous care; a daily chart is kept as rigidly as the white robed nurse in the palace of the king kept King George's, and many times during each day his cage is visited by the superintendent of the 200 or by some of the attendants. Not for worlds would they let N'Gi fall ill one moment; not for the honor of discovering the missing link would they let him die. Most any day that you might amble out to the National Zoo in Washington, where N'Gi lives, you will find some eminent scientist watching the baby gorilla strut stuff. Every little movement he makes has a meaning all its own and while to the untutored lay- man this gesture or that attitude may signify a monkey trick and nothing more, to the scientist, ever on the hunt for the missing link, it carries a sig- nificance. N’Gi Has Utter Contempt for Grown People. In his cage is a large rubber ball that excites his interest. It cannot be said that he is all the time enthusiastic over it, not nearly so enthusiastic as he is when a roach enters his cage. Then he acts like a human being, so his keeper and the superintendent of the zoo, Dr. W. H. Mann, himself a scientist of authority, tell us. & For grown folks N'Gi has a sort of jungle contempt. He will not cut his didos for them. But children he rec- ognizes as his equals and when they are around, you learn why your off- spring behave like monkeys. 1f you hear the merry laughter of children, punctuated by a scream or two (a strange sound indeed in the lions’ house), you can set it down as a fact that the youngsters and N'Gi are hav- ing the time of their young lives. Should any of those keen-eyed and sharp-brained scientists be in the lions’ den at that moment, you will ses them hustle over to N'Gi’s habitat to note if he can show them why he behaves like a human being. This, however, is not why N'Gi is so important. He is one of three gorillas in captivity in this country. A noted scientist, Dr. Yerkes, of Harvard, has spent a great deal of time with the fe- male gorilla, Congo, owned by Ben Burbage, and has written a book about her and his experiences with her. If you have a mind to read the book it is entitled “The Mind of a Gorilla.” It is a very interesting work, as books on gorillas go, written in support of the evolutionary hypothesis that man is descended from a monkey. Congo and N'Gi, more particularly the Washington animal, are very neces- sary to an understanding of that theory, fer they can be studied here and few scientists have the time or the money, like Prof. Garner, of Alabama —or is it Tennessee’—to go to the legtn: and prosecute their studies be- ind the bars of a cage. Gorillas do not live long in captivity, and if N'Gi lives long enough he may turn out to be_the missing link. Not all scientists who believe in the evolutionary theory attach a great deal of importance to N'Gi. To them he is The linear revolutionary theory holds that life came from sea slime and required great periods of time for the changes from one species to another. Dr. Clarks says this is not true. The lower the order of life the wider the gaps become. Then he lays down this scientific principle: “That these gaps between the different types of animals are real there can be no ques- tion. Yet it is just this that is denied by the modern evolutionists who assume vari- ous sorts of missi 1 the picture. The mis: the most part wholly imaginary.” is treason to the evolution cult have no meaning. When imagination enters the door science jumps out of the window. That is What our old professors used to teach us. But let Dr. Clark go on with I interesting story, and then we will re- turn to our interesting young friend from the jungle. What about man? Is he related to N'Gi? That's what's bothering the keeper of the zoo and the boob who spends his time laughing at his kinsman behind the bars. If Dr. Clark Is Right Darwin Theory Falls. “No one can deny,” says Dr. Clark, ‘“that the great apes are in their gen- eral form very much like man. Yet there is no fossil evidence whatever that the most ancient man was not a man. The very early men were quite different from the men we see today. But all the skeletal remains have been determined by the most competent au- thorities as definitely either man or ape, and in no case intermediate.” Scientists realize that if Dr. Clark’s theory is true, then the whole structure of evolution, as it has been reared from Darwin's time to the present, falls to the ground. The famous Smithsonian Institution, of which Dr. Clark is an ornament, has arranged all of its exhibits to prove the linear theory of evolution, and some of Tr. coadjutors, notably Dr. Ales a, the noted anthropologist and curator of the musuem, attac e importance to N'Gi than to Dr. Clark's paper. In one of the cases in the museum, Dr. Hrdlicka has assembled the brains of thirteen gorillas, seven of them from adult animals. These brains are studied constantly by evolutionists to find out how closely they are related the deposed Bishop Brown, has b its philosophy and reared its teaching on the linear theory of evolution. Mod- medicine itk osophy as i been’ rewritten to ng that touch y today has felt it quiet Government ething mor write a paper which he has worked out in the Did Ulysses Det now every time he the young scamp ba for another scratchin 1other thing th s to patt he can do t age. MONSTERS IN STONE. A Remarkable Natural Freak Caught Graphically by the Camera's Eye—Two Huge Cliffs, Resembling Scylla _and Charybdis of Homeric Legerd in Their Craggy Outlines, Which Glare Across a Strait of China's Yellow Sea. opyright, 1923, International Featurs Sorvics, Ine. Great Brltain Rights Reserved. Stroll en His Second Natal Anniversary. the zoo a pretty story of how one day hi v out of N'C ] child stood in one and pointed his finger at a wisp he keeper had overlooked aving like a human being you doubt it, go where till used and where it by, and watch n to eight or his wornout sweep behind it will be no one win or 11 him gbout it. Thes €. HE exact location f the legendary monsters, S , Scylla and Charybdis, who were described in Homer's Odyssey as leering at each other s a narrow strait, ated among The great have had in icily—and again y not. rate, two gi- across an obscure arm of China’s Yellow Sea —have recently been remarked as amazing counterparts to the fig- ures of the heroic tale. A pho pher caught their rugged outline when the light was favorable, with a re- t th the accom- cture shows. unsus mariners, In Homer's verse Scylla was a dreadful monster, with six heads, twelve feet and & voice like the yelp of She dwelt in a sea-cave looking to the west, and from time to time,would ex- tend her multiple heads g for ships from h to snatch se: . Charybdis, equal! orbidding, dwelt ju across the small stretch of sea, thrice a day sucking in and spouting out sea water, ¢ i 2 RO 91, IR TH I D AR 18 3R R AR I IR v = Z DI A AR LAY TR0 AR O .\ MWMM”/WMW}W//M’MWW