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The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey Unearthing the Origins
of Monkeys Apes and Humans 1st Edition Christopher
Beard Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Christopher Beard, Mark Klingler
ISBN(s): 9780520233690, 0520233697
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 4.23 MB
Year: 2004
Language: english
THE HUNT FOR THE DAWN MONKEY
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England
© 2004 by the Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beard, K. Chris.
The hunt for the dawn monkey : unearthing the
origins of monkeys, apes, and humans / Chris Beard;
illustrations by Mark Klingler.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 0–520–23369–7 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Primates, Fossil. 2. Monkeys, Fossil.
3. Fossil hominids. 4. Human beings—Origin.
5. Paleoanthropology. I. Title.
qe882.p7b35 2004
569'.8—dc22 2004001403
Manufactured in the United States of America

13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum

requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r 1997)
(Permanence of Paper).
For Sandi
Amor vitae supervivit
The Hunt for
the Dawn Monkey
Unearthing the Origins of
Monkeys, Apes, and Humans
CHRIS BEARD
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARK KLINGLER
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London

Contents
List of Illustrations / ix
Preface / xiii
1 Missing Links and Dawn Monkeys / 1

2 Toward Egypt’s Sacred Bull / 29
3 A Gem from the Willwood / 61
4 The Forest in the Sahara / 87
5 Received Wisdom / 115
6 The Birth of a Ghost Lineage / 142
7 Initial Hints from Deep Time / 167
8 Ghost Busters / 194
9 Resurrecting the Ghost / 215
10 Into the African Melting Pot / 246
11 Paleoanthropology and Pithecophobia / 277
Notes / 295
References Cited / 313
Index / 331
Illustrations
FIGURES
1. Cranial anatomy typical of prosimians and anthropoids 7
2. The author and Wen Chaohua 10
3. Barnum Brown’s expedition to Myanmar 17
4. Holotype lower jaw of Amphipithecus mogaungensis 19
5. Ladder and tree evolutionary paradigms 26
6. Georges Cuvier 31
7. Nineteenth-century exploitation of phosphatic fissure-
fillings in France unearths Adapis and other primate fossils 37
8. Lower jaws of two European adapiforms 46
9. Skull of Tetonius homunculus 65
10. Trogolemur and Shoshonius incisor morphology 69
11. Fragmentary specimen of lower jaw of Teilhardina 73
12. Gradual evolution documented in Bighorn Basin
omomyids 77
13. Jacob Wortman and other notable paleontologists near
Sheep Creek, Wyoming, 1899 85
14. Holotype lower jaw of Apidium phiomense 91
15. Elwyn Simons and Tom Bown in the Fayum 98
16. Face of Aegyptopithecus zeuxis 101
ix
x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
17. Fossil Epipremnum fruits 106

18. Artist’s rendering of Arsinoitherium 109
19. William Diller Matthew 119
20. Philip D. Gingerich 127
21. Frederick S. Szalay 130
22. Four competing versions of the primate family tree 137
23. Carnegie Museum of Natural History field party,
Wind River Basin, Wyoming 149
24. Variation in the anatomy of the primate tibiofibular joint 162
25. Cartoon depicting the rationale behind the ghost lineage
of early anthropoids 164
26. Marc Godinot searching for fossil primates in France 169
27. Fossil site of Glib Zegdou, Algeria 170
28. Isolated teeth of the early anthropoids Biretia
and Algeripithecus 171
29. Holotype lower jaw of Eosimias sinensis 188
30. Schematic drawings of the lower dentition of some fossil
primates 192
31. Skull of Catopithecus compared with that of a living
pygmy marmoset 210
32. J. G. Andersson 218
33. Schematic drawings of the holotype specimens of
Oligopithecus savagei and Hoanghonius stehlini 224
34. Holotype lower jaw of Xanthorhysis tabrumi 228
35. The divergent skull morphology of a living tarsier and
squirrel monkey, compared with the holotype specimen
of Phenacopithecus krishtalkai 233
36. Complete lower dentition of Hoanghonius stehlini 237
37. Part of the complete lower dentition of Eosimias
centennicus 240
38. Eosimiid, omomyid, and tarsier lower jaws 241
39. Elongation of the calcaneus in tarsier, baboon,
Shoshonius, and eosimiid 244
40. Jean-Jacques Jaeger in the field in Myanmar 256
41. Virtually complete lower jaw of Siamopithecus eocaenus 258
42. P4s of Eosimias sinensis, Eosimias centennicus,
Siamopithecus eocaenus, and Proteopithecus sylviae 261
43. Cartoon depicting the early dispersal of anthropoids
from Asia to Africa 268
44. Schematic drawings showing similarities in upper and
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
lower molar structure shared by adapiforms

and omomyids and by Altiatlasius and Eosimias 271
45. A provisional primate family tree 275
46. Henry Fairfield Osborn, proponent of the “dawn man”
theory of human origins 281
47. The “dawn man” theory of human origins 284
PLATES
Plates follow page 112.
1. Tarsier
2. Skull of Adapis parisiensis
3. Artist’s rendering of Adapis parisiensis
4. Artist’s rendering of Notharctus venticolus
5. Skull of Necrolemur antiquus
6. Artist’s rendering of Necrolemur antiquus
7. Skull of Shoshonius compared with that of a living tarsier
8. Artist’s rendering of Shoshonius cooperi
9. The L-41 site in the Fayum region of Egypt
10. Shanghuang fissure-fillings
11. Prospecting for fossils at Locality 7 on the southern bank
of the Yellow River in Henan Province, Yuanqu Basin,
central China
12. Geographic distribution of various living and fossil
primates in Eurasia and Africa
13. Map of Wyoming, showing the location of some of
the key fossils, fossil sites, and other geographic features
mentioned in the text
14. Artist’s rendering of Eosimias sinensis encountering
a group of smaller eosimiid primates
Preface
The story of human evolution has been told many times before, and it
will no doubt continue to be revised and updated as new fossils are dis-
covered. My goal in writing this book has been to add a much-needed
prologue to what is now a familiar tale. If the major outlines of human
origins are settled, the search for anthropoid origins remains scientifically
in its infancy. Great strides have been made over the past two centuries,
but we remain fairly ignorant of such basic questions as when, where,
how, and why our earliest anthropoid ancestors evolved. This appraisal
is not meant as a critique. Ignorance is to science as economic opportu-
nity is to capitalism. It is more rewarding to toil in earnest on an unset-
tled issue than to tinker at the margins of a topic that is largely known.
The story of anthropoid origins is fascinating precisely because so much
of it remains in flux. At the same time, it is a story that has never been
made available to a wide audience, one that extends beyond the narrow
group of academic specialists who have devoted much of their profes-
sional lives to solving its mysteries.
Teamwork plays a vital role in paleontology, because scientific ad-
vances in this field hinge on isolated discoveries that reach across vast
swaths of space and time. Over the past decade or so, I have had the
privilege of working with some of the finest and most accomplished pa-
xiii
xiv PREFACE
leontologists in the world, in places that few ever get to visit. I have no
doubt that I have learned more from my colleagues than vice versa.
Throughout, we have been united by our mutual goal of illuminating the
remote ancestry that we humans share with other anthropoid or “higher”
primates.
Paleontology is one of the few academic disciplines in which field ex-
ploration remains a fundamental part of the quest to expand knowledge
and understanding. This unique combination of the possibility for per-
sonal adventure and intellectual fulfillment is what attracted me to pa-
leontology in the first place. I hope that I am able to impart a fraction
of what I have experienced and learned during these past few years in
this book.
My role in this story would not have been possible without the sup-
port and cooperation of a large number of individuals and institutions.
It gives me great pleasure to thank my colleagues at the Carnegie Mu-
seum of Natural History, Mary Dawson and Luo Zhexi, who have often
ventured into the field with me and who have served as frequent sound-
ing boards for my ideas, while constantly providing me with their own
unique expertise. Equally important have been a number of other col-
leagues who have worked alongside me in the field in China: Dan Gebo,
Marc Godinot, Wulf Gose, John Kappelman, Leonard Krishtalka, Ross
MacPhee, Jay Norejko, Tim Ryan, and Alan Tabrum. I am also deeply
indebted to my friends and colleagues at the Institute of Vertebrate Pa-
leontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing: Qi Tao, Wang Banyue, Li
Chuankuei, Wang Yuanqing, Tong Yongsheng, Wang Jingwen, Huang
Xueshi, and Guo Jianwei. For years, these world-class scholars and in-
domitable scientists have welcomed my American colleagues and me into
their country and into their homes. During our joint expeditions to var-
ious parts of China, they have imparted their knowledge and persever-
ance along with their unmatched organizational skills, without which
none of the expeditions could ever have been launched. More important,
they have extended a hand of friendship to me and many other wei guo
ren that will always be cherished. I also want to thank some of the sci-
entists who played such critical roles in my formal education and pro-
fessional training, and who have enlightened and inspired me through
the years, among them Rich Kay, Elwyn Simons, Ken Rose, Tom Bown,
and Alan Walker.
Fieldwork in distant locales can be expensive, and none of this research
could have been conducted without the financial support of various in-
stitutions, including the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the
PREFACE xv
Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and the Physical

Anthropology Program at the National Science Foundation. A fellow-
ship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation gave me
the flexibility to take on this challenge.
In writing the manuscript, I have benefited from the wisdom and in-
sight of numerous friends and colleagues, including Mary Dawson, Dan
Gebo, Bert Covert, Ken Rose, Jean-Jacques Jaeger, Marc Godinot, and
Hans Sues. The original artwork in this book is due to the talent and cre-
ativity of Mark Klingler, scientific illustrator at the Carnegie Museum of
Natural History. Original photographs have generously been provided
by Patrick Aventurier and the Gamma Agency, Bert Covert, Marc
Godinot, David Haring, Rich Kay, Mohamed Mahboubi, Elwyn Simons,
and Fred Szalay. Archival photographs have been provided by the Amer-
ican Museum of Natural History, the Carnegie Museum of Natural His-
tory, the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, and Thierry Pélissié (on
behalf of Phosphatières du Quercy). I also gratefully acknowledge the
skill and patience of my editor at the University of California Press, Blake
Edgar. On a personal level, I owe the greatest debt of all to my parents,
Kenneth and Nancy Beard, who instigated my sense of curiosity at an
early age, and especially to my wife, Sandra Beard, whose love and sup-
port make it all worthwhile.
1
Missing Links and Dawn Monkeys
I n rural China, the highest compliment you can get is not that you’re
attractive or smart. It’s that you work really hard. As I shift to stay in
the scant midday shade offered by a deep ravine on the northern bank
of the Yellow River, this proletarian attitude makes a lot of sense. When
I left the United States earlier this month, spring had barely begun. Check-
ing the calendar in my field notebook, I see that it’s only mid May—too
early in the season for a heat wave. Yet for the past few days, my team
has endured triple digit temperatures. Each of us sports a tan several
shades deeper than our normal hue. A few yards away, where he chips
at a piece of freshwater limestone that just might contain a fossil, my
colleague Wang Jingwen is beginning to live up to his nickname, which
translates roughly as “black donkey.” I’m told that the local villagers have
been praising our work ethic, because when it gets this hot, even the peas-
ants take a siesta under a shade tree.
We have no choice but to tolerate the heat of the noon sun, because
it provides the best lighting conditions for finding fossils. At this time of
day, there are no shadows to hide the small jaws and limb bones that
have been entombed in these rock strata for the past forty thousand mil-
lennia or so. Having traversed twelve time zones to get here, I’m not about
to forgo the chance to find an important specimen merely because of the
1
2 MISSING LINKS AND DAWN MONKEYS
oppressive heat. My persistence is rewarded when I split apart another

block of greenish-gray limestone. Inside I find a nearly complete max-
illa, or upper jaw, of a small rodent, replete with three black teeth that
glisten like fresh obsidian in the sunlight. Peering through a hand lens
that I keep tied to a leather thong draped like a necklace under my tee
shirt, the diagnostic pattern of cusps and crests on the fossilized teeth
readily identifies the creature as Pappocricetodon schaubi. A primitive
progenitor of modern mice, rats, and gerbils, Pappocricetodon is the most
abundant fossil mammal known from this site.1 Though it’s not exactly
the pivotal discovery I had hoped for, finding the mortal remains of any
animal that lived millions of years ago invigorates the mind. I begin to
contemplate the weighty scientific issues that have led me to travel
halfway around the world, to this remote part of central China’s Shanxi
Province.
My particular area of scientific expertise, vertebrate paleontology, is
in the midst of a sea change. Much of what I learned as a graduate stu-
dent is being challenged by provocative new fossils and new methods of
interpreting them, if not discarded altogether. Increasing globalization
and the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite states have opened
up most of the world to paleontological exploration, including places
that, only a few years earlier, I never dreamed of being able to visit in
search of fossils. On a separate front, molecular biologists are sequenc-
ing the DNA of various organisms at an increasingly frenetic pace, churn-
ing out megabytes of raw data that are being used to test old ideas, and
to propose new ones, about the evolutionary relationships of living plants
and animals. All in all, it feels like a unique moment in history and a
great time to be a paleontologist, especially when you’re involved in one
of the most exciting debates to hit the field of paleoanthropology in many
years.
Paleoanthropology is the scientific study of human origins. In the
strictest sense, paleoanthropologists seek to illuminate the evolutionary
history of the human lineage as it evolved from our more apelike ances-
tors. Fossil hominids are the crown jewels of paleoanthropology. With-
out them, theories about when, where, and how our species evolved
would be helter-skelter, unconstrained by hard data. One of the great tri-
umphs of twentieth century science has been the recovery of an amaz-
ing diversity of hominid fossils, mainly from eastern and southern Africa,
but also from various parts of Eurasia, ranging from France and Spain
to China and Indonesia. Discoveries of new fossil hominids continue un-
abated. Considered as a whole, the fossil record of early humans is now
MISSING LINKS AND DAWN MONKEYS 3
complete enough that, at least in broad strokes, we know how humans

evolved from more apelike precursors. Virtually all paleoanthropologists
agree, for example, that the human lineage originated sometime between
five and seven million years ago in Africa, and that early humans acquired
the ability to walk upright on two legs millions of years before their brains
enlarged much beyond those of chimpanzees.2
A fuller consideration of human origins requires us to place our own
evolutionary history within a broader context. Did humans take longer
to evolve our unique characteristics than other living primates, or did
our ancestors simply experience unusually high rates of evolution? For
that matter, how unique are humans with respect to other primates any-
way? Which seemingly “human” traits are ours alone, and which are
shared with various primate relatives? Where do humans lie on the fam-
ily tree of all primates, and what does that tree look like? Where do pri-
mates lie on the larger family tree of all mammals? Were there particu-
larly critical events during the earlier phases of our evolutionary history,
before our own lineage branched away from those leading to chimpanzees
and other living primates? Today, these questions pose far greater sci-
entific challenges than simply filling in the constantly shrinking gaps in
the human fossil record. Yet, ironically, when most people hear the term
“missing link,” they think of a gap in the fossil record that supposedly
fails to link modern humans with our apelike ancestors. The dirty little
secret of paleoanthropology is that, while there are plenty of missing links,
they don’t occur where most people think they do. They exist farther
back in deep time. Ultimately, this is why I’m at the bottom of a ravine
on the banks of the Yellow River.
The ravine itself is a natural erosional feature, an ephemeral drainage
flowing into the Yellow River from the north. It dissects a relatively flat
plateau, which—like most rural parts of central China—is now under in-
tensive wheat cultivation. Standing on top of the plateau at the head of
the ravine offers a panoramic view of the surrounding terrain. To the
south, on the far side of the Yellow River in Henan Province, lie rugged
mountains composed primarily of limestone of Ordovician age. Some 450
million years ago—about twice the age of the earliest known dinosaurs—
the rock now forming the crest of this range was deposited in a warm,
shallow sea not unlike that surrounding the modern Bahamas.
To the north and east, wheat fields extend across the plateau as far as
the eye can see. Immediately west of the ravine, the sleepy village of Zhaili
shelters the peasant farmers who tend the surrounding fields. A narrow
path, hewn into the western wall of the ravine, provides access to the
bottom some 150 feet below for the villagers and their sheep and goats.
Walking down this path, you can’t help but notice the peculiar nature of
the nearly vertical walls of the ravine. The rock defining both sides of
the ravine is soft and pliable, so easy to work that many people in this
part of China actually carve small caves into it, which function as stor-
age rooms or even small homes. Geologically, this type of rock is known
as loess. It is composed of wind-blown sediment laid down by countless
dust storms that swept across this part of China during the Pleistocene
Epoch, when vast ice sheets were expanding and contracting farther north
in Siberia.
What is unique about this particular ravine, though, is not the loess.
In this part of Shanxi Province, loess is ubiquitous, draping over older
geological features like autumn leaves covering a well-kept lawn. But here,
as the ravine approaches the Yellow River, it cuts deep into the loess. For
the last fifty yards or so of its existence, the ravine finally succeeds in
breaking through the loess altogether to expose the much older under-
lying strata. Even to the untrained eye, it is clear that these rocks are dif-
ferent, in terms of both their composition and their segregation into dif-
ferent layers or beds. They consist of alternating bands of blue-green
mudstone, pale yellow and white limestone, and thick gray sandstones,
the last of which show internal evidence of stratification in the form of
minute swales of sand grains known as cross-bedding. The fossils we seek
are concentrated in the layers of mudstone and limestone. They are
roughly forty million years old, about six times older than the earliest
putative hominids ever discovered. They pertain to an interval of Earth
history known as the Eocene, the Greek roots of which translate more
or less as “dawn of recent [life].”
As its etymology suggests, the Eocene was a pivotal period in the his-
tory of life on Earth—a time of transition from ancient to modern. The
earliest members of most living orders of mammals first appeared and
became geographically widespread, replacing more archaic forms that
left no living descendants. Such distinctive and highly specialized types
of modern mammals as bats and whales first showed up in the Eocene,
together with the earliest odd-toed ungulates (horses, rhinos, and tapirs),
even-toed ungulates (pigs, camels, and primitive relatives of deer and an-
telopes), and others. The order of mammals to which we belong, the Pri-
mates, also first became geographically widespread and ecologically
prominent at the beginning of the Eocene, although a few scattered fos-
sils hint that primates are somewhat older yet. At the same time, the
Eocene witnessed the decline and extinction of many groups of mam-
mals that first evolved alongside the dinosaurs, or immediately follow-

ing their demise. Examples include the vaguely rodentlike multituber-
culates, the raccoon- or bearlike arctocyonids, and the large herbivores
known as pantodonts and uintatheres. The Eocene also witnessed a great
evolutionary diversification of flowering plants, together with the insects
that feed on them.3
In terms of its prevailing climate, the Eocene was virtually a mirror
image of the Pleistocene or “Ice Ages,” when much of human evolution
transpired. It began with a pronounced episode of global warming some
fifty-five million years ago. Such optimal conditions allowed tropical and
subtropical forests—and the animals that inhabit them—to occur at much
higher latitudes than they do today. Because primates have always pros-
pered in these warm forest habitats, the Eocene was truly a heyday for
primate evolution. Among their other accomplishments, Eocene primates
extended their geographic range far beyond its current limits. Fossils of
Eocene primates have been found as far north as Saskatchewan in North
America, England and Germany in Europe, and Mongolia in Asia. As I
discuss in greater detail in subsequent chapters, the fossil record shows
that during the Eocene, even these northern continental regions supported
diverse evolutionary radiations of primates. After enduring for more than
twenty million years, the greenhouse world of the Eocene ended thirty-
four million years ago, when the Earth’s climate once again became cooler
and drier. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that this severe climatic de-
terioration witnessed the extinction of primates in North America and
Europe, where tropical and subtropical habitats disappeared.
The vast majority of the fossil primates known from the Eocene re-
semble the most primitive primates alive today. These animals, collec-
tively known as prosimians, include the diverse radiation of lemurs na-
tive to Madagascar, the bushbabies of continental Africa, the lorises of
Africa and southern Asia, and, perhaps strangest of all, the tarsiers of
Southeast Asian islands. Prosimians resemble other primates, including
humans, in possessing nails rather than claws on most digits of their hands
and feet, and in having eyes that face forward to allow for enhanced,
“stereoscopic” vision. Like all primates aside from humans, prosimians
have a grasping big toe, functionally akin to the human thumb. Yet
prosimians also differ from humans and our nearest primate relatives,
the monkeys and apes, in many aspects of their anatomy, physiology, and
behavior.
Monkeys, apes, and humans are collectively known as anthropoids or
“higher primates.” Compared to prosimians, living anthropoids possess
larger brains, eye sockets that are almost completely surrounded by bone,
a single lower jaw bone (or mandible) formed by the fusion of two sep-
arate bones at the chin, and many other anatomically advanced features.
In terms of their behavior, anthropoids again differ from most prosimi-
ans, although there is some overlap between species of each group. In
general, anthropoids tend to live in complex groups characterized by in-
tricate social interactions among individual members. Some prosimian
species, in contrast, live quite solitary lives. All anthropoids aside from
the South American owl monkey (Aotus) are diurnal—that is, they are
mainly active during daytime. Many prosimians, notably tarsiers, bush-
babies, lorises, and some lemurs, strongly prefer to move about and feed
at night. These profound differences between prosimians and anthropoids
extend to the molecular level. Analyses of long sequences of the DNA of
various species of monkeys, apes, and humans show that all of these species
are far more similar to one another than any of them are to prosimians.
In an evolutionary context, this means that, whether we analyze anatomy,
behavior, or DNA, the conclusion remains inescapable. We humans are
much more closely related to monkeys and apes than we are to lemurs
or tarsiers. Put slightly differently, monkeys share a more recent com-
mon ancestor with us than they do with prosimians.
Despite unanimous scientific agreement that humans share a close
common ancestry with monkeys and apes, one of the most controver-
sial issues in paleoanthropology today is how, when, and where the first
anthropoids—the common ancestors of monkeys, apes, and people—
evolved. In stark contrast to the relatively abundant fossil record for early
humans, the fossil record for anthropoid origins is spotty, incomplete,
and seemingly incoherent. Paleontology, like other branches of science,
abhors such a vacuum. The main purpose of our expedition is to help
flesh out this distant phase of our evolutionary history. Yet the simple
fact that our team is searching for fossils of early anthropoid primates
in Eocene rocks in central China is, in several respects, unorthodox—if
not downright heretical.
Our goal is to test a bold new hypothesis about anthropoid origins—
one that moves the birthplace of these remote human ancestors from
Africa to Asia while it ruptures the established evolutionary timetable by
tens of millions of years. This sweeping idea rests on the wobbly foun-
dation provided by some fragmentary fossils from another Chinese site,
known as Shanghuang, that I had recently named Eosimias (“dawn mon-
key” in Latin and Greek). If we are to have any hope of gaining scientific
traction, we must find better fossils of Eosimias and animals like it. The
Figure 1. Major differences in cranial anatomy distinguish prosimians from anthropoids.

Illustrated here (from left to right) are skulls of a ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata), a South
American squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus), and a human (Homo sapiens). Note the basic
similarity in skull form in the two anthropoids, which differ from the lemur in having a rela-
tively larger brain, a reduced snout, fused mandibular symphysis and metopic suture, and
a complete postorbital septum. Original art by Mark Klingler, copyright Carnegie Museum
of Natural History.
bottom of the ravine on the northern bank of the Yellow River seems like
a promising place to start.
To search for such elusive fossils, a highly interdisciplinary and inter-
national team of scientists has converged on this remote corner of cen-
tral China. Each member brings a unique set of skills and knowledge to
the table. On the Chinese side are four scientists from the Institute of
Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (or IVPP), a branch of
the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Tong Yongsheng, a veteran of numer-
ous field campaigns all over the People’s Republic, originally hails from
Zhejiang Province, along China’s southern coastline. A muscular man
of medium build, Tong specializes in small mammals from the Eocene,
especially rodents and insectivores (shrews, hedgehogs, and the like).
Wang Jingwen, who grew up in Beijing, primarily studies ungulates, or
hooved mammals, from the Eocene. Lately, though, Wang has developed
an abiding interest in early primates, which allows the two of us to col-
laborate closely on joint research projects. Huang Xueshi boasts the most
eclectic interests of any member of our team, having worked on fossils
ranging in age from Paleocene to Oligocene. Huang’s excellent mastery
of English, combined with his strong local dialect, makes him the object
of the occasional joke. Other Chinese sometimes ask him to speak to them
in English so that they can better understand him! Guo Jianwei, the
youngest Chinese member of the team, focuses on the evolution of ru-
minant artiodactyls—the large group of even-toed ungulates that includes
living deer, giraffes, antelopes, goats, and cattle.
The American members of the team include both paleontologists and
geologists. Mary Dawson, my colleague at the Carnegie Museum of Nat-
ural History, specializes in the early evolution of rodents, rabbits, and
their kin. Her role in the discovery of the first Eocene vertebrates north
of the Arctic Circle, on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic archipel-
ago, has won her widespread acclaim. John Kappelman, an anthropol-
ogist from the University of Texas, is a leading expert on the later phases
of higher primate evolution, especially the evolution of apes during the
Miocene Epoch. John’s role in our expedition relates to his other pro-
fessional hat, that of paleomagnetic stratigrapher. Together with Wulf
Gose, a geologist from the University of Texas, and Tim Ryan, his grad-
uate student, Kappelman hopes to determine the age of the fossils we
find, using the episodic reversals in the Earth’s magnetic field as a guide.
Wen Chaohua, a peasant farmer from the neighboring village of Zhaili,
rounds out our field crew. I first met Mr. Wen the previous year, when
we hired him as a manual laborer. Slight of build but surprisingly strong,
Wen rapidly earned a spot on our team because of his solid work habits,
his quick smile, and his unbridled enthusiasm for finding fossils. Though
Wen has only the minimal educational background typical of rural Chi-
nese of his generation, he shows plenty of raw intelligence. Had he been
fortunate enough to grow up under different circumstances, I’m sure Wen
could have been successful in almost any endeavor he chose to pursue.
This year, Wen looks positively professorial wearing his new eyeglasses,
which correct a minor astigmatism that had bothered him last year. Like
me, Wen sports a small hand lens tied around his neck, which he uses to
examine small fossils up close. In recognition of his hard work, Mary
Dawson gave Wen her own hand lens at the conclusion of our previous
field season. Now that he has the standard tools of the trade, Wen takes
even greater pride in his work. Our reward is a steady stream of fossils.
Wen’s role on our field crew is simply to extract large blocks of fossil-
bearing rock from the bottom of the ravine. Other members of the team
then break each block down more finely in search of any fossils that might
lie inside. Wen’s tool of choice for this enterprise is a large steel rock
pick hafted onto a stout wooden handle. This Wen wields with all of the
exuberance of a forty-niner searching for a vein of gold. Invariably, Wen
himself uncovers many fossils, simply because he exposes so much fresh

fossil-bearing rock with each powerful swing of his pick. At first, it was
hard to restrain Wen from attempting to extricate the fossils he encoun-
tered during his daily assault on the layers of limestone and mudstone.
Now, with a field season of experience under his belt, Wen understands
that whenever he happens across a fossil, he must stop his work and alert
the rest of the team.
I find that fieldwork in almost any locale quickly settles down into a
daily routine. The work itself is often repetitive, even though the scientific
results can vary dramatically from day to day. Our days in the bottom
of the ravine by the Yellow River consist mostly of reducing large blocks
of fossil-bearing rock to smaller ones, a process that is randomly punc-
tuated by Wen’s standard victory call—“You yige ya-chuang! You yige
ya-chuang!” (I’ve got a jaw!)—whenever he finds something he thinks
is interesting. Wen himself is particularly fond of large fossils, possibly
because of his culture’s long-standing fascination with “dragon bones.”
Usually, I know that Wen’s most agitated cries mean that he has stum-
bled across the limb bones or jaws of the hippolike animal known as An-
thracokeryx, the most common large mammal found at this locality. But
Wen appreciates that the rest of us become more excited by relatively
complete specimens of smaller mammals.
Today, Wen is in particularly fine form, whacking away at the fresh-
water limestone with gusto. It is May 21, 1995, and Wen knows that the
field season is scheduled to end within the week, so that our team can
return to Beijing in time to plan the logistics of future research before
the American members have to catch their return flights home. The end
of the field season means big changes in all of our daily lives. Most of us
will return to our academic lifestyles, writing grant proposals and tech-
nical articles, preparing lectures, and attending administrative meetings.
Wen will go back to being a farmer in the village of Zhaili. Maybe it’s
the thought of the upcoming changes that spurs Wen onward. In any case,
he seems determined to find something important today. Looking back
on it now, I doubt that Wen could possibly have dreamed of making such
a momentous discovery as he hoisted his pick once more.
I can still hear the distinct thump of Wen’s rock pick striking that fate-
ful blow. Immediately, Wen’s excited chatter makes me drop whatever
I’m working on to see what all the fuss is about. Wen shouts: “Yige xiao
ya-chuang, heng piao-liang! Ni kan-kan!” (A small jaw—very beautiful.
You must see it for yourself!). As soon as I see what Wen’s hefty pick has
revealed, my heart begins to race. A large block of freshwater limestone
Figure 2. The author and Wen Chaohua at Locality 1 in the

Yuanqu Basin of central China, where Mr. Wen discovered
the complete lower dentition of Eosimias centennicus in
1995.
has been split cleanly in two by a single blow from Wen’s pick. Through
sheer luck, the plane in which the block has fractured corresponds ex-
actly with the bedding plane on which both halves of an Eosimias lower
jaw were entombed some forty million years ago. Unlike the fragmen-
tary jaws of Eosimias we had collected at Shanghuang, this specimen is
virtually complete, with all of the teeth intact and well preserved. The re-
gion near the chin makes it immediately apparent that the two halves of
the lower jaw of Eosimias are not fused as they are in modern monkeys,
apes, and humans. Despite the presence of this prosimianlike condition,
I can also make out the remarkably anthropoidlike front teeth of Eosimias.
Here, in a single specimen, lies compelling evidence that Eosimias occu-
pies a critical position on the evolutionary tree of primates—one inter-
mediate between living prosimians and anthropoids. This precious fossil

is exactly what we’ve been looking for—the pot of gold at the end of the
rainbow!
Still reeling from the excitement of Wen’s discovery, I realize that other
members of the crew are crowding anxiously around me, waiting to learn
what is so interesting. Mary Dawson approaches to peer at the block of
stone in my hands. As soon as she sees the dual rows of teeth lying on
the limestone slab like an exquisite string of black pearls, she exclaims,
“Chris, this specimen is going to confirm what we’ve thought all along!
Eosimias is a primitive little monkey after all! No one will be able to
complain about the Shanghuang specimens anymore.” I grin and agree
wholeheartedly. Tong Yongsheng and Wang Jingwen then come closer,
converse briefly with Wen in Chinese, and begin to examine the amaz-
ing specimen for themselves. After a minute or so, they too look up at
me with glints in their eyes. “This fossil is very important,” intones Tong
seriously. “Maybe it proves that all anthropoids began in China.” Wang
agrees, then adds, “Chris, you are very lucky! Everywhere you go in China
you find interesting primates. Maybe it’s because of your nickname.” My
Chinese nickname, xiao hou-ze, means “little monkey,” in recognition
of my favorite fossils.
As far as my new hypothesis about anthropoid origins was concerned,
Wen’s pivotal discovery couldn’t have come at a better time. Ever since
I had introduced Eosimias as a critical new link in the search for an-
thropoid origins, both the tiny fossil and I had been at the center of a
controversy of monumental proportions, and I could not afford the lux-
ury of ignoring the academic brouhaha. My career had barely begun, yet
my scientific reputation was under assault. I needed fresh and compelling
evidence if my new interpretation of anthropoid origins was to gain
ground, and Wen’s remarkable breakthrough promised to provide ex-
actly that. Novel ideas in paleontology depend heavily on the fossils that
support them. Until now, however, my biggest challenge had been that
most of the fossil record seemed to be stacked against me.
For the past several decades, all undisputed early anthropoids had been
discovered in Africa, mainly at a series of sites in the Fayum region of
northern Egypt being excavated by Elwyn Simons of Duke University
and his students and colleagues. This African dominance of the early fos-
sil record of anthropoids dovetailed nicely with the broad consensus that
later stages of anthropoid evolution, especially the origins of apes and
humans, were confined to that continent. Yet I doubted that the geo-
graphical component of primate evolution could be as simple as this “Out
of Africa” theory implied. Did most, or even all, of the major evolutionary
transitions in primate and human evolution occur in Africa? For me, Asia
is a far more likely birthplace for the lineage we share with living apes
and monkeys. Yet my views lie distinctly in the minority at present.
Despite Africa’s legitimate claim as a potential birthplace for the ear-
liest anthropoids, three lines of evidence have persuaded me to focus my
efforts on Asia. These include: (1) the geographic distribution of tarsiers,
the group of prosimians that seems to be the nearest evolutionary cousins
of anthropoids; (2) some fragmentary fossils from Myanmar (a nation
formerly known as Burma), discovered decades ago, that appear to doc-
ument the presence of early—and anatomically primitive—anthropoids
in Southeast Asia; and (3) results from my own earlier expeditions to
China, which yielded the contentious fossils that had ignited the pale-
oanthropological firestorm in the first place.
The first important hint that Asia may have been the birthplace of all
anthropoids comes from the geographic distribution of tarsiers, which
live only on various offshore islands in Southeast Asia. By any objective
standard, tarsiers are among the strangest primates that have ever lived.
Tarsiers are the only primates that eat nothing but live animal prey—
mainly insects, but also small vertebrates such as lizards, snakes, and even
birds, which tarsiers have been reported to catch in midflight.4 In con-
trast, most other primates tend to be vegetarians; yet others, like most
humans, consume lots of vegetables along with their meat. Although tar-
siers are not habitual bipeds like us, their own special way of moving
about is at least as distinctive. The hindlimbs of tarsiers are extremely
long and muscular, allowing them to leap across distances many times
their own body length. Finally, tarsiers resemble many other prosimians
in that they are most active at night. Yet tarsiers lack the familiar “glow-
in-the-dark” structure in the back of their eyes (technically known as the
tapetum lucidum) that concentrates diffuse nighttime light in the eyes of
lemurs, cats, and many other mammals. To compensate for this anatom-
ical deficiency, tarsiers have evolved the largest eyes of any living primate.
Indeed, the volume of a tarsier eyeball more or less equals that of a tar-
sier brain!5
Despite the generally odd biology of tarsiers, a great deal of evidence
suggests that these animals are the nearest living relatives of anthropoids.
For example, the noses of tarsiers resemble those of humans and other
anthropoids in lacking the moist, hairless region between the nostrils,
known as the rhinarium, that creates the familiar “wet nose” of dogs,
lemurs, and many other mammals. Like those of anthropoids, the eye
sockets of tarsiers are almost completely enclosed by bone. In contrast,

lemurs have much simpler eye sockets, in which the outer margin is
defined by a simple, rodlike strut of bone. Although the hindlimbs of tar-
siers are highly specialized and differ from those of anthropoids, some
of the individual bones (especially the talus—the ankle bone that artic-
ulates with the bones of the lower leg) closely resemble those of certain
monkeys. Lemurs differ appreciably from both tarsiers and anthropoids
in these respects. Both tarsiers and anthropoids lack the tapetum lucidum
layer in the back of the eyeball, while lemurs still retain this ancient mam-
malian structure. Evidence from physiology and molecular biology like-
wise indicates that tarsiers and anthropoids are more closely related to
one another than either group is to lemurs. For example, in contrast to
lemurs and most other mammals, neither tarsiers nor anthropoids have
the ability to synthesize vitamin C. Like humans, tarsiers must therefore
ingest sufficient quantities of this compound to meet their daily nutri-
tional requirements.6 Similarly, DNA sequencing has shown that the
genomes of tarsiers and anthropoids have been modified from the an-
cestral primate condition in exactly the same way, by having chunks of
extraneous DNA included in their genomes in precisely the same loca-
tions.7 Although some of these similarities between tarsiers and anthro-
poids may be spurious (caused by convergent evolution from different
ancestral conditions), it seems very unlikely that all of them are. Instead,
the simplest hypothesis requires us to view tarsiers and anthropoids as
descendants of a common ancestor—one that possessed most, if not all,
of the preceding biological traits. This common ancestry shared by tar-
siers and anthropoids existed for some unknown length of time after the
evolutionary schism that produced the ancestors of all other living pri-
mate lineages (lemurs, lorises, and bushbabies).
Accepting a unique common ancestry between tarsiers and anthro-
poids has significant implications for reconstructing the geography of an-
thropoid origins. By definition, the anthropoid lineage originated when
ancestral tarsiers first diverged from ancestral anthropoids. Ultimately,
this evolutionary divergence between tarsiers and anthropoids corre-
sponded to a single episode of speciation. Documenting such a geologi-
cally brief event typically lies beyond the power of resolution of pale-
ontology. However, from everything we currently know about speciation,
it occurs on a local, rather than global, scale. Accordingly, the pivotal
speciation event that gave rise to the tarsier and the anthropoid lineages
must have occurred at a unique (if currently unknown) point in space
and time. Once we conclude that tarsiers and anthropoids are each other’s
nearest evolutionary cousins, we must also assume that both lineages orig-
inated in the same place (since speciation, like politics, is local). As it hap-
pens, ascertaining the birthplace of tarsiers is more straightforward than
doing the same for anthropoids.
Today, tarsiers are found only on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra,
Borneo, and Sulawesi, some of the more southerly islands of the Philip-
pine archipelago, and small satellite islands nearby. Undoubted fossil tar-
siers are rare, and individual specimens are highly fragmentary, but these
too have only been found in Asia.8 Fossils pertaining to extinct prosimi-
ans that may be closely related to tarsiers have been found in North Amer-
ica, Europe, and Asia (these animals will be explored more fully in chap-
ter 3). Significantly, fossil tarsiers—or even plausible fossil relatives of
tarsiers—have never been found in Africa.9 The narrow geographic range
of tarsiers throughout their evolutionary history therefore provides an
important guide to where tarsiers and anthropoids first diverged, with
the simplest hypothesis being that this evolutionary split took place in
Asia. If so, some of the more adventurous members of the anthropoid
lineage later migrated to Africa, where many subsequent events in an-
thropoid evolution apparently occurred. Eventually, anthropoids even
reached South America, although no one believes anthropoids originated
there. On the other hand, there is no evidence that tarsiers ever left their
Asian homeland. A major problem, then, for anyone who would argue
that anthropoids originated in Africa is the absence of any living or fos-
sil tarsiers from that landmass.
Long before there was any substantial fossil record for early humans,
Charles Darwin used similar logic to conclude that Africa may have been
the ancestral homeland for our own lineage. In The Descent of Man, Dar-
win noted that:
In each great region of the world the living mammals are closely related
to the extinct species of the same region. It is therefore probable that
Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla
and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man’s nearest allies, it
is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African
continent than elsewhere.10
Decades after the original publication of The Descent of Man in 1871,

discoveries of early hominid fossils in Africa convincingly upheld Dar-
win’s prediction about the geography of human evolution.
Although Darwin’s logic remains impeccable, and despite the fact that
his views were subsequently vindicated, it is still something of an intel-

lectual leap to apply Darwin’s approach to an event that happened so
much farther back in time. I suspect that the antiquity of anthropoid
origins is almost an order of magnitude greater than the birth of the
hominid lineage (about fifty-five million years ago for anthropoids, and
five to seven million years ago for hominids). Relying too heavily on
the geographic distribution of living tarsiers to reconstruct such an an-
cient chapter in our evolutionary history has obvious drawbacks. For-
tunately, the fossil record, fragmentary and imperfect though it may be,
provides crucial evidence that bolsters an Asian origin for the lineage
we share with monkeys and apes. Critical fossils from Myanmar and
China form the second and third lines of evidence favoring an Asian
origin for anthropoids.
The first putative fossil anthropoids to be unearthed in Asia were dis-
covered in Myanmar during the early part of the twentieth century. Af-
ter a series of wars between the Burmese and the British during the late
nineteenth century, Burma was annexed to India, then a British colony.
As a result, the first significant paleontological exploration of Myan-
mar was conducted by British paleontologists and geologists employed
by the Geological Survey of India. In 1913 a British paleontologist named
G. D. P. Cotter, working in Eocene strata in the region of the Pondaung
Hills in central Myanmar, found three fossilized fragments of upper and
lower jaws, all of which appeared to belong to a single individual. The
specimens were so incomplete and so poorly preserved that they were
not made known to science until fourteen years later, when they were
formally described by Cotter’s supervisor at the Geological Survey of
India, Guy Pilgrim.
Pilgrim’s analysis of these fossils, which he named Pondaungia cot-
teri in honor of his colleague, was meticulous, cautious, and surprisingly
prescient. Pilgrim acknowledged that the scrappy nature of the specimens
left open the possibility that Pondaungia might not be a primate at all.
Nevertheless, he proceeded to point out anatomical details of the pre-
served cheek teeth that suggested, not only that Pondaungia was a pri-
mate, but that it was actually the most primitive anthropoid known at
the time. In his own words, Pilgrim noted that:
If my interpretation of the structure of the teeth in Pondaungia is correct,
and if it really is a Primate, then it must represent an earlier Anthropoid
stage than Propliopithecus [one of the few anthropoid fossils known at
that time, from the Fayum region of Egypt]. . . . It seems, however, worthy
of consideration whether Pondaungia does not partially fill the gap

between the definitely Anthropoid Propliopithecus and some Lower
or Middle Eocene Tarsioid.11
By the time Pilgrim got around to publishing his description of Pon-

daungia in 1927, a second fossil primate had already been discovered in
the same vicinity, this time by the famous American paleontologist Bar-
num Brown, primarily known for his expeditions to western North Amer-
ica, where he collected numerous dinosaurs for the American Museum
of Natural History in New York. Brown and his wife, Lilian, traveled to
the Pondaung Hills in early 1923, with a retinue of Burmese assistants
and servants. Virtually impassable roads and primitive modes of local
transportation hindered the expedition’s work. The threat of malaria was
constant, and it eventually claimed the life of one of Brown’s Burmese
servants. Brown himself contracted malaria later in the expedition,
which prevented him from extending his paleontological exploration far-
ther north, into China’s Yunnan Province.12 Despite these hardships,
Brown’s campaign succeeded in amassing an important collection of fos-
sil mammals, some of which proved to be more nearly complete than
those collected by the earlier Geological Survey of India expeditions. The
vast majority of the specimens uncovered by Brown belonged to large
mammals, including extinct rhinolike forms known as brontotheres and
amynodonts and primitive hippolike animals called anthracotheres.
When the collection was initially unpacked and curated at the American
Museum, a single, rather innocuous-looking specimen was considered
insufficiently important to warrant its own entry in the museum’s per-
manent catalogue. Fourteen years later, it would finally be recognized as
the second species of fossil primate from the Pondaung Hills.
The task of studying and describing the fossils collected by Barnum
Brown’s expedition to Myanmar fell to Edwin H. Colbert, who was then
a young assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum. Like
Brown, Colbert would eventually gain scientific celebrity for his work
on dinosaurs. During the 1930s, however, the trajectory of Colbert’s ca-
reer was dictated by Brown’s field expeditions in southern Asia, which
aimed primarily to find and collect fossil mammals. As Colbert began
his research on the Myanmar fossils, it became apparent that most of the
specimens belonged to species that had already been described and named
by Pilgrim and Cotter, whose teams had gotten there first. The most im-
portant exception was a fragment of a lower jaw preserving the crowns
of three teeth and part of the region near the chin. This area, known as
Figure 3. Barnum Brown (on horseback), leading the American Museum of Natural History
expedition to the Pondaung region of Myanmar (formerly Burma) that recovered the holo-
type lower jaw of Amphipithecus mogaungensis. Photograph courtesy of and copyright by
American Museum of Natural History Library.
the symphysis, is the site where the two separate bones of the lower jaw
meet to form a joint at the midline. Colbert’s rapidly growing expertise
on early mammals allowed him to recognize immediately that this bro-
ken bit of jawbone pertained to an early primate.
Most living and fossil species of mammals, including primates, can be
distinguished from their closest relatives on the basis of their teeth alone.
This may sound trivial, but for paleontologists, the evolutionary finger-
print stamped onto the anatomy of mammalian teeth is both critical and
fortuitous. Early mammals owed their evolutionary success to the com-
plicated structure of their teeth, which allowed them to chew their food
prior to swallowing it. This ability, absent in birds and reptiles, lets mam-
mals eat a wider variety of foods more efficiently than other vertebrates
can. As mammals evolved, their diets often changed, and the anatomy
of their teeth and jaws responded in kind. At the same time, mammalian
teeth are the hardest, most durable parts of the mammalian body. How
fortunate for paleontologists that the most diagnostic elements of the
mammalian skeleton are precisely those that are most likely to be pre-
served as fossils.
The teeth of primates, like those of most mammals, can be segregated
into four different classes. From front to back in the jaw, these basic tooth
types include incisors, which in humans are roughly chisel-shaped; ca-

nines, which are simple and fairly conical in structure; premolars, which
dentists call bicuspids because of their two main cusps; and molars, the
relatively large teeth at the back of the jaw that do most of the actual
chewing. Humans normally have two incisors, one canine, two premo-
lars, and three molars (one of which is known as a “wisdom tooth” be-
cause it is the last tooth to erupt as teenagers reach adulthood) on each
side of their upper and lower jaws.
In the jaw fragments of Pondaungia cotteri described by Pilgrim, only
upper and lower molars were preserved. But the new specimen described
by Colbert had two premolars and a single molar still intact. The rest of
the teeth were broken away long ago, perhaps not long after the animal
died. Thus, Colbert had the luxury of being able to analyze the anatomy
of the premolars and the symphysis for the first time. These new pieces
of the puzzle gave Colbert more confidence than Pilgrim had, although
the two men reached virtually identical conclusions about the evolu-
tionary position occupied by these Burmese fossil primates.
Colbert formally described the second Burmese primate, which he
named Amphipithecus mogaungensis, in 1937.13 Citing the peculiar
anatomy of the premolars and the great depth and robusticity of the jaw,
Colbert concluded that Amphipithecus represented an anthropoid rather
than a relative of lemurs or tarsiers. A surprising feature shown by the
lower jaw of Amphipithecus was that, in life, it would have possessed
three premolars on each side. (Only two of these teeth remained intact in
the fossil, but the presence of the other premolar could readily be inferred
from its broken root.) Among living anthropoids, only the monkeys of
Central and South America possess three premolars on each side of their
lower jaws. All living anthropoids of the Old World resemble humans in
having only two premolars. Rather than interpret Amphipithecus as a
relative of South American monkeys that somehow happened to live in
Myanmar, Colbert concluded that Amphipithecus was related to living
and fossil anthropoids from the Old World, especially Propliopithecus
from the Fayum region of Egypt. Possibly, the retention of an additional
premolar that was lacking in other Old World anthropoids merely signi-
fied the primitive evolutionary status of Amphipithecus.
Pondaungia and Amphipithecus, from the Eocene of Myanmar, are
roughly thirty-seven to thirty-eight million years old, which makes them
about three to four million years older than Propliopithecus and its con-
temporaries from the early Oligocene of Egypt.14 This fact alone caused
Figure 4. The holotype lower jaw of Amphipithecus mogaungensis

from the Pondaung Formation of Myanmar, collected by Barnum Brown
in 1923. Photograph courtesy of and copyright by American Museum
of Natural History Library.
the Burmese fossils to play a central role in debates about anthropoid

origins throughout the twentieth century. Yet, from the very beginning,
these Burmese primates inspired controversy. For example, although Col-
bert’s ideas about the evolutionary position of Amphipithecus converged
neatly on those of Pilgrim regarding Pondaungia, Colbert himself doubted
that the two Burmese primates were closely related. He even hinted that
Pondaungia might not be a primate at all, referring to it derisively as a
“supposed primate.” In retrospect, it is clear that Colbert made too much
of relatively minor anatomical differences between Amphipithecus and
Pondaungia. Indeed, the fragmentary specimens that were known at the

time shared no parts in common. In a very real sense, Colbert was com-
paring apples and oranges.
Incomplete fossils, like all of the specimens of Pondaungia and Amphi-
pithecus available to Pilgrim and Colbert, are almost inherently contro-
versial. The problem is exacerbated in the case of fossils that lie near the
origin of groups, like the anthropoids, that attract lots of scientific at-
tention. From a purely practical perspective, the only way to resolve these
sorts of disputes is by finding more—and preferably more complete—
fossils. As the decades passed, however, only a few additional fragments
of Pondaungia and Amphipithecus were collected and described, and
these specimens added little new anatomical information.15 During the
second half of the twentieth century, Myanmar became politically iso-
lated from much of the West because of its record of military dictator-
ship. Political isolation hindered scientific collaboration, and efforts to
advance our understanding of Pondaungia and Amphipithecus effectively
ceased. Over this same interval of time, the fossil record of early an-
thropoids in Africa grew by leaps and bounds. By the early 1990s, the
disparity was so severe that most experts believed that anthropoids must
have originated in Africa, and that Pondaungia and Amphipithecus might
not be anthropoids after all.16
I remained agnostic about the geography of anthropoid origins until
I began fieldwork in China in early 1992. That project, undertaken in
collaboration with colleagues from the IVPP, focused on a newly dis-
covered series of ancient fissure-fillings near the village of Shanghuang,
not far west of Shanghai. Fissures form whenever limestone rock for-
mations are exposed to the elements, because limestone dissolves in rain-
water. Over time, as water percolates through structures that originated
as tiny cracks, they enlarge. Forming low points on the local terrain, these
limestone fissures naturally tend to fill up with mud and any other de-
bris, such as animal bones and carcasses, that happen to wash into them.
As luck would have it, the Shanghuang fissure-fillings formed during the
middle Eocene, about forty-five million years ago. The abundant fossils
that our team recovered there include small, primitive primates that are
roughly seven or eight million years older than Pondaungia and Am-
phipithecus. For the first time, these fossils placed me squarely in the cen-
ter of the debate over when, where, and how the common ancestors of
monkeys, apes, and humans evolved.
Certain fossils require radical adjustments to theories of how various
forms of life evolved. One of the small primates we found at Shanghuang
rapidly became such a pivotal fossil. Like several other “missing links”
in evolutionary biology, this new primate, which we later described as
Eosimias sinensis (“dawn monkey from China”), possessed a unique com-
bination of primitive and advanced anatomical features.17 Eventually, its
age and anatomy would force me to disagree with decades of earlier re-
search on anthropoid origins. In retrospect, the poor quality of the fos-
sil record of early anthropoids at the time meant that earlier theories were
ripe for being overturned. As already noted, living anthropoids differ in
numerous fundamental ways from living prosimians. Prior to our dis-
coveries at Shanghuang, however, the fossil record did little to blur the
distinction. The earliest fairly complete anthropoid fossils then known,
from the Fayum region of Egypt, were obviously anthropoidlike in all
major respects. Although the advanced anatomy of these Egyptian fos-
sils rendered their anthropoid status uncontroversial, this also left a gap-
ing hole in the fossil record that could only be filled by more primitive
fossils. Eosimias clearly met this criterion. It wasn’t immediately obvi-
ous to me (and it still isn’t obvious to some of my colleagues) that, in
stark contrast to the Fayum anthropoids, Eosimias is a primitive an-
thropoid. It resembled neither Eocene prosimians nor other anthropoids
known at the time. Before I could fully comprehend its evolutionary
significance, however, I had to undertake a thorough analysis of its
anatomy.
Any anatomical study of a previously unknown fossil is constrained
by the quality of the material that is recovered. Like Pilgrim and Colbert
before me, at first I had only fragmentary jaws and teeth of Eosimias,
and nothing more, to go by. The best specimen we unearthed from the
Shanghuang fissure-fillings was a lower jaw with three teeth intact—the
last premolar and the first two molars. Crucial features, like the anatomy
of the incisors, the canine, and the front part of the jaw, remained am-
biguous at best. To make matters worse, Eosimias was considerably more
primitive than either Pondaungia or Amphipithecus, making it even more
difficult to evaluate. Yet despite these problems, my examination of these
first fragmentary specimens convinced me that Eosimias qualified fully
as a primitive anthropoid. My confidence derived partly from the utter
lack of evidence supporting a different position for Eosimias on the pri-
mate evolutionary tree. The anatomical details underpinning my views
are discussed in chapter 7. The important point to make here is that, for
most scientists, remarkable claims require remarkable evidence. By any
standard, the first fossils of Eosimias we found at Shanghuang were un-
remarkable, at least in terms of their completeness. This led many ex-
perts to doubt the anthropoid status of Eosimias. As a result, our fate-

ful expedition to the little ravine near the Yellow River was launched as
a conscious effort to uncover anatomically superior specimens of Eosi-
mias. Thanks to Wen’s landmark discovery, we succeeded beyond our
wildest expectations.
In fact, the discovery of this single specimen has catapulted Eosimias
to an elite position among Eocene primates. Although many primates
have been described from the Eocene, few of them are documented by
reasonably complete remains. Fewer still are known from truly superior
anatomical specimens—either skulls or complete or partial skeletons. Of
those rare species that are represented by such extraordinary fossils, such
as Adapis parisiensis from France and Notharctus tenebrosus and
Shoshonius cooperi from Wyoming, all are clearly fossil prosimians. They
are only distantly related to the lineage that ultimately gave rise to mod-
ern monkeys, apes, and humans.
Wen’s specimen reveals that Eosimias differs dramatically from these
Eocene prosimians. Like living anthropoids, Eosimias has deep, power-
fully constructed lower jaws. Its front teeth or incisors resemble those of
living anthropoids in both their vertical orientation and small size. Liv-
ing and fossil prosimians almost always have jaws that are more gracile,
especially up front near the symphysis. As a result, their incisors tend to
protrude forward, rather than being erect like ours. Immediately behind
the incisors, the large, daggerlike canine of Eosimias also looks distinctly
like that of an anthropoid. The premolars of Eosimias are very primi-
tive, but again they resemble those of other early anthropoids, including
Amphipithecus from Myanmar, in being oriented obliquely in the jaw.
In Eocene prosimians, the long axis of each premolar is oriented front
to back. The molars of Eosimias differ from those of all other primates.
They are primitive in the sense that an extra cusp called the paraconid
is still present. This cusp was suppressed later in the evolutionary his-
tory of anthropoids. In other details of their anatomy, however, even the
molars of Eosimias show anthropoid features. As in other early anthro-
poids, the rear part (or talonid) of the last molar is highly abbreviated
in Eosimias. This region is often greatly enlarged in Eocene prosimians.
Although it’s too early to speculate about what Eosimias might have
looked like in the flesh, a few important details are already clear. For ex-
ample, we have a good idea of how big Eosimias was, because the size
of the lower molars correlates closely with body size in living primates.
Eosimias sinensis from Shanghuang probably weighed about three and
a half ounces (100 grams). Wen’s Eosimias, which appears to document
a new species, would have weighed slightly more (about four and a half
ounces, or 130 grams). The smallest living monkeys, the pygmy mar-
mosets of South America (Cebuella pygmaea), overlap Eosimias in body
size, but most living anthropoids are substantially larger, typically by an
order of magnitude or more. Indeed, even most tarsiers would tip the
scales at a heavier weight than Eosimias. Small body size alone would
have forced Eosimias to consume a diet rich in calories. Eosimias there-
fore probably ate a variety of insects, small vertebrates, and fruits. The
relatively foreshortened lower jaw of Eosimias indicates that its muzzle
must also have been abbreviated, like that of most monkeys. All mod-
ern primates the size of Eosimias live in trees, not on the ground. It there-
fore seems likely that Eosimias was a denizen of the forest as well. Be-
yond this, it is premature to predict much about the biology of Eosimias.
Its intermediate evolutionary position between modern prosimians and
anthropoids means that Eosimias may have been either prosimianlike or
anthropoidlike in most of its biological attributes. Such a transitional spot
on the evolutionary tree hinders attempts to reconstruct the habits and
appearance of Eosimias, at least until more complete specimens are found.
Yet at the same time, this makes Eosimias crucial in the search for an-
thropoid origins.
Exceptional fossils serve as critical guideposts for deciphering evolu-
tionary history. Fossils often demonstrate that real animals once possessed
combinations of features that are never found together in their living rel-
atives. The famous “feathered dinosaurs” from northeastern China pro-
vide a classic example of this phenomenon, because they show that an-
imals with skeletons that are undeniably dinosaurian in overall form were
also covered with an external coat of feathers like that of modern birds.18
Such genuine chimeras from deep time can be pivotal when it comes to
reconstructing the family tree of a group of organisms. In the example
given above, new and spectacular specimens have dramatically illumi-
nated the family tree encompassing birds and theropod dinosaurs. Ex-
ceptional fossils can also show the sequence in which certain anatomi-
cal features, and their associated functions, evolved. Again, in the case
of the feathered dinosaurs, it now seems clear that feathers evolved long
before other features that are characteristic of modern birds, like their
toothless, horny beak. The relatively primitive forelimbs and breasts of
the feathered dinosaurs demonstrate that these animals could not fly.
Feathers must therefore have originally evolved to serve some other func-
tion, like courtship display or the conservation of body heat. At the same
time, exceptional fossils testify that such transitional animals lived in a
specific place at a certain time. This information can be crucial in deter-

mining when and where major lineages first evolved.
By any of these criteria, Eosimias qualifies as an exceptional fossil.
For me, Eosimias functions as a Rosetta Stone for reconstructing the an-
cestry of monkeys, apes, and humans, in much the same way that feath-
ered dinosaurs have fundamentally resolved the origin of birds. But not
all scientists agree that Eosimias is so critical for understanding anthro-
poid origins. Indeed, not all scientists agree on the importance of feath-
ered dinosaurs for reconstructing the origin of birds. Consensus rarely
emerges along the cutting edge of any scientific issue. Yet the following
two points seem beyond dispute. First, Eosimias is far more primitive
than any other fossil thought to be related to the origin of anthropoids.
It is so primitive, in fact, that some experts continue to deny that Eosimias
has any relevance for solving the mystery of anthropoid origins. Second,
Eosimias is millions of years older than any other fairly complete fossil
thought to belong to the anthropoid lineage. It is so old, in fact, that its
age alone conflicts with widely accepted theories about when the an-
thropoid lineage was born. At the core of these disagreements regarding
Eosimias lie two very different paradigms for reconstructing the evolu-
tionary history of primates.
I refer to these two evolutionary paradigms as the ladder and the tree.
The older ladder paradigm has largely withstood the test of time, a ma-
jor criterion bolstering the scientific impact of any theory or model. In
order to convey the underlying philosophy, methods, and goals of these
competing evolutionary paradigms, let’s make an analogy between the
large-scale evolution of life on Earth (known as phylogeny) and the much
smaller-scale family trees that are more familiar to most of us (known
as genealogy). The ladder paradigm attempts to establish the phyloge-
netic line of descent from a remote ancestor to whatever descendant
species is of interest. In genealogy, a similar goal would be to chart your
direct ancestors (great-great-grandparents and such), with little regard
for determining your distant aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Within the field of paleoanthropology, the ladder paradigm owes much
to the influence of Sir Wilfrid E. Le Gros Clark, a British anatomist and
primatologist whose publications dominated the study of primate evo-
lution for much of the mid twentieth century. Although one might eas-
ily oversimplify the complex views of such an important scientific figure,
it is fair to say that Le Gros Clark perceived the entire span of primate
and human evolution as a steady progression from primitive to advanced.
In Le Gros Clark’s view, the original gamble made by the earliest
primates—to invade the trees and take on a highly arboreal lifestyle—

led almost inexorably to a series of evolutionary trends that reached its
climax with the advent of Homo sapiens. Le Gros Clark summed it all
up rather nicely in his seminal book, The Antecedents of Man:
Among the Primates of today, the series tree shrew–lemur–tarsier–

monkey–ape–man suggests progressive levels of organization in an
actual evolutionary sequence. And that such a sequence did occur is
demonstrated by the fossil series beginning with the early plesiadapids
[so-called “archaic primates” from the Paleocene] and extending through
the Palaeocene and Eocene prosimians, and through the cercopithecoid
[Old World monkeys] and pongid [apes] Primates of the Oligocene, Mio-
cene, and Pliocene, to the hominids of the Pleistocene. Thus the founda-
tions of evolutionary development which finally culminated in our own
species, Homo sapiens, were laid when the first little tree shrew–like crea-
tures advanced beyond the level of the lowly insectivores which lived dur-
ing the Cretaceous period and embarked on an arboreal career without
the restrictions and limitations imposed by . . . a terrestrial mode of life.19
According to Le Gros Clark’s ladder paradigm of primate evolution,

the origin of anthropoids was simply one of several important steps along
the path from tree shrew to human. This particular step corresponds to
a significant evolutionary transition, from more primitive prosimians to
more advanced anthropoids, marked by such novel anatomical features
as a bigger brain, more forward-facing eyes enclosed in bony eye sock-
ets, and a reduction of the snout. Needless to say, because anthropoids
evolved from prosimians, they must have originated later in time.
Later students of the primate fossil record eventually abandoned Le
Gros Clark’s concept that the evolution of this group entailed a steady
progression toward humans. But Le Gros Clark’s ladder continues to
influence studies of primate evolution to this day. In terms of interpret-
ing the primate fossil record, the ladder paradigm sustains modern at-
tempts to link undoubted anthropoids with earlier fossil prosimians in
a simple ancestor-descendant fashion.20 Given this mind-set, the earliest
anthropoids must have evolved from a group of anatomically advanced
prosimians. Because most of these advanced prosimians lived toward the
end of the Eocene, the idea that anthropoids originated relatively recently,
near the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (about thirty-four million years
ago), follows logically from Le Gros Clark’s ladder. Indeed, this notion
of a relatively recent origin for anthropoids is intimately related to the
ladder’s expectation that a sequence of fossils traversing the “prosimian-
anthropoid boundary” will ultimately be uncovered.21
Figure 5. Divergent evolutionary paradigms lead to very different notions of how anthro-
poids (denoted by stippling) should be defined. According to the ladder paradigm (shown
on the left), the earliest anthropoids not only follow prosimians in the fossil record but also
differ from them in possessing most of the diagnostic features found in living anthropoids.
In contrast, the tree paradigm (shown on the right) posits that the anthropoid lineage origi-
nated whenever the lineage leading to living tarsiers bifurcated away from it. In this case,
the earliest anthropoids may have been quite ancient, and they may have lacked many, if
not most, of the diagnostic features that characterize living anthropoids. Original art by
Mark Klingler, copyright Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
The alternative tree paradigm flows from the work of the German en-
tomologist Willi Hennig, whose methodology for reconstructing evolu-
tionary relationships is known as cladistics. Returning once again to the
analogy between phylogeny and genealogy, Hennig’s approach makes
no attempt to identify direct ancestors. Instead, the tree paradigm seeks
to determine which species are closer evolutionary cousins. Identifying
these closely related species hinges on documenting their shared biolog-
ical features, especially those features that have arisen relatively recently
in evolutionary history. Assuming that all of life on Earth ultimately de-
rives from a single ancestral source, all species must eventually converge
at some level on the tree of life. The goal of cladistics is to identify which
limbs of this tree sprout nearest one another from a larger, common trunk.
The ladder and tree paradigms differ in several fundamental ways. The
tree paradigm views the product of evolution as a constantly branching
sequence of lineages, while the ladder paradigm envisions a simpler, lad-
derlike progression from primitive to advanced. Thus, the tree paradigm
recognizes that the ancient bifurcation between tree shrews and humans
established two independent lineages, each of which subsequently experi-
enced its own unique evolutionary history. There is no reason to presume
that tree shrews have been frozen in time since they split away from the
human lineage, nor is it necessary to postulate that humans underwent a
“tree shrew stage” at some early phase in their evolutionary history.
Paleontologists who follow the tree and ladder paradigms often in-
terpret fossils in very different ways. Both sides agree that the quality of
the fossil record varies dramatically across space and time. In a few spe-
cial places, like the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming or the White River Bad-
lands of South Dakota, several million years of evolutionary history are
reasonably documented by abundant fossils. These rich sequences of fossil-
bearing strata provide a great deal of information about the kinds of an-
imals that inhabited these particular regions during a finite interval of
time. Taking the exceptional fossil records from these areas as a kind of
gold standard, it is clear that, even in such best-case scenarios, certain
animals are well represented as fossils while others are not. In the latter
case, there may be major gaps in our knowledge of their anatomy and
evolutionary significance. Even if we disregard any distinction between
well-known and poorly documented fossils, we must admit that both
classes of fossils combined document only a tiny fraction of the Earth’s
ancient biological diversity. Once we acknowledge these inherent limi-
tations of the fossil record, the slim chance that any fossil is the direct
ancestor of another (or of a living species) becomes immediately appar-
ent.22 Accordingly, the tree paradigm treats fossil species in much the same
way that it deals with living ones. They are assumed to be evolutionary
cousins, not direct ancestors. The ladder paradigm, on the other hand,
is fixated on the issue of direct ancestry. As such, followers of the ladder
paradigm are far more likely to propose that a given fossil is directly an-
cestral to, or near the ancestry of, some later group of organisms.
How do these different evolutionary paradigms bear on the search for
anthropoid origins? I believe the paradigms have exerted an enormous
influence, because they have affected the way in which different scien-
tists frame the entire debate. Under the tree paradigm, the anthropoid
lineage was established, by definition, when the tarsier lineage bifurcated
from that leading to anthropoids. It is at least conceivable under the tree
paradigm that the origin of anthropoids was very ancient (correspon-
ding to whenever the tarsier and anthropoid lineages split) and that the
earliest members of the anthropoid lineage were extremely primitive in
their anatomy and other biological attributes. In contrast, the ladder par-
adigm equates the origin of anthropoids with achieving an important evo-

lutionary stage. In this case, anthropoids should differ from prosimians
by their acquisition of some key set of anatomical features, or by hav-
ing crossed a biological threshold separating primitive prosimians from
more advanced anthropoids. Hence, the ladder paradigm predicts that
the origin of anthropoids was relatively recent (at least compared to their
prosimian ancestors) and that the earliest anthropoids must have been
anatomically quite advanced.
Given its great antiquity and primitive anatomy, I suspect that Eosimias
is the key to resolving this dispute about which evolutionary paradigm—
the ladder or the tree—best illuminates the deep recesses of our distant
past. Looking up from the rock that contains Wen’s small treasure, the
oblique rays of light now striking the walls of the ravine remind me once
again of the massive timescales that are at play here. The limestone block
in my hand containing the world’s oldest fairly complete fossil anthro-
poid dates to the latter part of the middle Eocene, some forty thousand
millennia before our time. The loess walls of the ravine, ancient them-
selves by human standards, began to be deposited some two thousand
millennia ago. The evolutionary history of the human lineage corre-
sponds, in large measure, to the loess. The origins of the anthropoid lin-
eage are at least as ancient as the limestone. The stratigraphic uncon-
formity separating the limestone from the overlying loess equals roughly
thirty-eight thousand millennia.
Two conclusions emerge from the mathematics of the ravine’s strati-
graphic column. First, the common evolutionary history that we share
with other anthropoids far outweighs the unique evolutionary history
that is ours alone. Second, if we want to get a better picture of how
Eosimias fits into the grander scheme of primate and human evolution,
we’ve got to venture well beyond this ravine. Our itinerary begins on the
other side of the vast Eurasian landmass, where the first chapter in this
saga was written some two hundred years ago.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
appearance of the ravine along its course to its mouth. If ravines are
of rapid descent from their sources to their outlets, they mostly
contribute their gold to the streams into which they empty
themselves.
SECOND VARIETY
The second variety of gold is that which is creek-washd,—the

corners and edges of which are rounded off by attrition among
moving pebbles and sand of the tertiary deposits of creeks, during
the time of freshets. This gold, whether found in plates, or rounded
masses, is most of it too heavy to float in running water, being carrid
onward to its place of rest, by the united agency of gravitation,
moving water, and the tertiary sediment.
The creeks and large rivers receive their gold from the 121
mouths of ravines and hills contiguous to the creeks and
rivers.
Gold is found in dry ravines, creeks, and in basins of rivers, weighing

several ounces.
In some places along the creeks, the miner finds angular gold
deposited in the banks of the streams at the foot of a hill, where it
had not slidden down sufficiently far to reach the power of the
waters of the stream.
Lost, or erratic gold is sometimes found in the creeks among the

creek-washd sand and gravel of the stream, being subject to
occasional removals, by subsequent freshets. Such gold seems to be
on its way to its final deposit or resting place in situations where
subsequent freshets can take no effect upon it for further removal.
Some of this gold is in pieces of several dollars value, but most of it

is in fine grains, with a mixture of floating gold.
The fine gold is found in situations above the rock, in deposits of
loose sand, where every violent freshet gives it another removal, till
it is ultimately carrid downward and deposited in the bars of the
large rivers.
THIRD VARIETY.
The third variety of gold is that which may be denominated bar,

scale, or floating gold. This gold is found in the tertiary deposits,
commonly calld bars of the large streams flowing down from the
Neveda range of mountains. Hence the name of bar gold.
Its form is that of very thin scales, which causes it to float in waters
that are highly agitated. Hence also, the names of scale, and floating
gold.
This gold is seldom found in pieces worth more than a dollar, and is
rounded off by attrition, the same as the creek-washd gold.
The several varieties here describd, were the same, only differing in
form, in the original rock—but the several agents of deposit, have
separated them into separate classes, according to the several
capacities of gold to receive the power of the several depositing
agents. Hence, the finest floating gold is found lowest down 122
the principal rivers, where it is deposited. Creek-washd gold,
being heavy, is never movd very far down the stream, from where it
was first deposited into it—and dry ravine gold, having still a little
different agent from the others, has never been movd but a very
short distance.
* * * * * * * *
If no more could be said of water, than of other matter of the earth,

that it seeks rest by gravitation, in common with the harder portions
of matter, but little of its influences could ever be known, to what is
now apparent, when viewd in all its bearings. But the fluidity of
water, gives it advantages over other matter, in possessing
movements, which the latter can never receive—such as lateral
motion, capillary attraction, great expansion by heat, aerial passages
from rare to dense mediums, thereby giving a new preparation to
descend in the form of rain or snow, to restore again its former
equilibrium.
Running water, in the light here intended to be explaind, is that

which flows down rivers and creeks, from higher to lower levels.
Water, like all other substances, will fall perpendicularly from higher
to lower levels, if there be no interposing obstacle. But as the beds
of streams descend like an inclind plane, from their sources to their
mouths, water is forcd over them by the power of gravitation, till it
arrives at a level with other surrounding water, and is thereby
prevented from descending further. Now in the movement of water,
along its downward passage, many considerations arise.
First, if water were made to pass downward thro’ a straight duct or

channel, whose lateral and vertical sides were perfectly smooth, so
that no friction could exist between the water and the trough or duct
that containd it, there would be no eddy formd along its sides, for
the water would all of it have a straight forward, and downward
movement.
But as the bottom and edges of streams are rough and uneven, very
frequent obstructions to water occur. Places so obstructed, are the
eddies or partial eddies, so commonly observable in streams of
running water.
If an observer stands on the bank of a creek, during a time of high

water, where there is much irregularity and unevenness of its 123
bottom, he will see in some places, that the water is nearly
motionless—in others, a whirling round of the water,—in others, a
retrograde or up stream motion. Under all the circumstances of
these several appearances of the water, those places that are the
most quiet, approach nearest to the most perfect eddies.
Wherever a bend in a creek occurs, the water, by an opposing bank,
is forcd to take a new direction, passing downward, along on its
inclind, though uneven bottom. The opposing bank stops a portion
of the flowing waters, and causes them to turn back, along the
shore of the creek, producing, thereby,—a section of inactive waters,
between those of the downward and those of the upward course.
Again, if a lateral stream of water flows into a creek, similar or

nearly so in magnitude, the two partially opposing currents form an
eddy in the upper angle of the two, and an eddy of less magnitude,
is also formd in the angle of the two, on the lower side of the lateral
stream.
When water passes over a reef of rock, that traverses entirely across
the stream, like a mill dam, the central waters or current cannot well
form an eddy immediately below the reef, on account of its
impetuous movement—though laterally, towards the banks, partial
quietness of the water may exist.
If an obstacle, as a rock or other body, protrude in the current of a

creek, so high that water is forcd around it, instead of running over
it, an eddy is formd immediately below it, in magnitude according to
the size of the obstacle.
CHAPTER XXI.
Mode of searching for Gold in California.
Rock gold, or that which is disseminated in dust or fine particles

amongst quartz rock, being so rare in California, but little attention is
paid to searching for it in such situations.
124
Mode of Searching for the First Variety.
The miner, in prospecting for the first variety, or dry ravine gold,
selects a situation where, judging from the appearance of the hills,
or the slope of the ravine likely to contain gold, it may be found
most abundant. He commences his excavation at the center of the
ravine, by digging downward till he arrives in most cases at the rock
on which the deposit was made, which varies from 2 to 10 or 15 feet
in depth. He then prospects outward toward the hills till he arrives at
the line of deposit, in case any deposit there exists.
After having found a lead of gold, he excavates upward and

downward the ravine, being careful whilst progressing along, to
watch the several meanderings of the lead, which are likely to occur
even in very short distances.
The miner never need be long at a loss to determine whether there

be gold in the place where he is prospecting. If gold exists only in
moderate quantities, the pick will generally detect it by occasionally
throwing out into view pieces of gold, even when they are quite
small. In digging in dry ravines, the miner, after having arrivd within
a few inches of the rock where he expects to find gold, tries the
earth by washing some of it. If he finds no gold, all of the earth
above this place is thrown away as useless. He then continues to dig
downward, trying the dirt at short intervals, till he finds gold in his
washings. He then is careful to save and wash all of the remainder
that lies above the rock, and even to pick off a few inches from the
top of some rocks that are loose and open enough to receive gold in
some of their crevices, carefully saving and washing the whole.
In some instances in dry ravines, where slate rock occurs, it is

decomposd into clay, to a considerable depth, from the vast amount
of time elapsd since it has been placd in its present situation. Where
such decomposition has occurd, it is useless to penetrate downward
into it, in search of gold, as the gold was deposited most generally in
a strong iron deposit, previous to the decomposition of the rock.
This strong iron deposit is formd of soluble iron, amongst which the
gold is mechanically entangld and there held, unless the iron
becomes again soluble and leaves the gold to settle down by 125
gravitation into the decomposd rock below. Cases of the
second solubility of the iron do not often occur in dry ravines.
Mode of Searching for the Second Variety.
It is more difficult to point out a successful mode of searching for

gold of the second variety than either of the other two. Yet
notwithstanding the difficulties attending it, some hints may be
given, useful to the miner, who has previously become in some
degree acquainted with the philosophy of running water and the
nature of tertiary deposits.
Those creeks of intermediate size between dry ravines, and the large
rivers flowing down from the mountains, though dry or nearly so at
some seasons of the year, are powrful in times of heavy rains or the
rapid melting of snows, as is evident from the position of some
heavy rocks in those streams, which none other agent the powr of a
mighty stream could have placd there.
In prospecting for gold in those creeks, the miner may select a

position which he judges to be the channel of the creek, or that
portion of it where the greatest powr of water is exerted, and
commence digging downward, till he arrives at the rock over which
various tertiary sediment has flowd, and if he finds the coarse gravel
and sand through which he passes, entirely down to the rock,
cleanly washd of alluvium, he may fairly conclude that he is in the
current of that stream, or where the water passes with greatest
force. In those situations, he rarely finds gold, or if he does, it is in
sparing quantities.
If upon arriving at the rock, he finds a cross reef or ledge rock,

rising one foot or more above the rocks downward stream from his
position, he may then prospect outward either way toward the banks
of the creek, keeping close to the rock on the lower side, till he
arrives a little outward from the current where the waters formd an
eddy, as denoted by a mixture of alluvium with the sand and gravel
of the creek. In those situations, he may expect to find gold. If he
finds gold in such a locality, he may prospect outward toward the
banks of the creek, till he has exhausted the whole deposit.
As the tilted rocks of the gold district have universally one 126
course, and as creeks meander across them in nearly every
possible direction, there are chances in many places for reefs of
rocks to traverse the beds of creeks, directly along their channels.
Under such circumstances, but little gold has been deposited. If the
miner continues his search along the creek downward, till he arrives
at a bend in it, where the water is forcd over such reefs, a little
outward from the channel, gold is often found in great abundance—
watching carefully whilst excavating the earth in such places, to
prospect the lower side of any reefs that may be found there.
If a rock of several feet in hight traverse crosswise the whole width

of a creek, so that the only passage for the water of the stream is
over it, like the fall of a mill-dam, its force seldom allows gold to be
deposited near to it. But a short distance below, where the first quiet
waters occurd, gold may be found in lateral and central pockets and
little basin-shapd hollows of the rock at the bottom of creek
deposits.
Again, if a rock project from any portion of the stream, so high that
water cannot run over it but is forcd around it, an eddy is in such
case formd immediately below it, in which situation gold may be
expected to be found.
In some situations, along some of the creeks, as at Sullivan’s camp,

on one of the tributaries of the St. Waukeen, the slate rock, on
which the gold was deposited, has since been decomposd to a
considerable depth below the tertiary deposit. It would seem that a
second solubility of the iron deposits had taken place, and liberated
the gold to settle down into the decomposd rock. In such situations,
the miner continues to prospect downward, as long as he finds gold
abundant enough to reward his labors.
Creek-washd gold is sometimes found higher up in the banks from

the current of creeks than the experiencd miner is aware of, but the
man acquainted with the appearance of creek-worn pebbles is never
at a loss to determine the agent that placd them there—and if, in
such situations, he finds rounded, creek worn pebbles, he may
conclude that the pebbles and gold also were deposited there by
water. In such cases, it becomes the miner to examine the 127
bearing and level of the creek above such place, and see if
the creek may not some day have formd an eddy there, and
deposited its various contents. If, still higher up in the bank, he finds
gold entirely angular, he may conclude that it has slidden down from
the hill above.
Another thing to be observd by the miner, relative to creek-gold, is,

that in prospecting up and down creeks for gold,—he carefully
observe where a level expanse is formd at the foot of a cascade.
Near the head of such expanse, between the cascade above, and
the next one below, he will find gold more abundant than toward the
lower end of such expanse.
In searching for eddies of creeks, where the greatest amount of gold
is often deposited, the miner should bear in mind that eddies formd
in time of freshets, are most likely to contain the most and heaviest
gold, from the fact that much power is requird to move heavy gold,
and tertiary sediment.
Mode of searching for the Third Variety.
To obtain a knowledge of prospecting for bar gold, requires also a

knowledge of the philosophy of running waters—yet gold is
prospected with less difficulty in the bars of large rivers than creek-
gold.
As the bar gold is very light and thin, it is subject to the various
freaks of running water, in which it is mechanically suspended,
during times of freshets. In prospecting therefore, for gold along the
bars of rivers, the principal thing to be attended to, is the formation
of eddies along those streams, which, if the edges of the water were
straight and unbroken, through the length of a bar, would also be
formd along in straight lines but a short distance from shore, or
outer edge of the water. These eddies are the intermediate line
between the downward current of the stream, and the retrograde or
upward movement of the water along the shore, where water is
nearly in a quiescent state.
But as the edges of streams are rough and uneven, the eddies are
also formd uneven. Hence, a deposit of gold in those eddies, is not
straight, but varies according to the unevenness of the shore.
Such a line of quiet water, is the only deposit of bar gold 128
which is likely to be richest, near the heads of bars.
The best method of prospecting for bar gold, is to commence an

excavation, a short distance out from the water of the river, near the
head of a bar, digging downward but a short distance among the
sand and gravel, occasionally washing the earth.—And if gold is
found, progress toward and from the river, till the richest deposit is
found. Then change the course upward and downward the river, and
continue to prospect as long as gold is abundant enough to pay for
working.
As this gold is subject to subsequent removals by every succeeding

freshet, it never gets deeply embedded in any solid tertiary deposits.
Hence, it is most usually found among loose sand and gravel, near
the surface.
This search should be made when the water of rivers is quite low,
which time is also best in searching for the other two varieties.
If along a line of bar deposit, a rock is found protruding high—gold

may be expected more abundant immediately below it, than
elsewhere.
To those searching for gold along the bars of rivers, it was at first,
not a little surprising to learn that but little gold was deposited
toward the center of the stream—but on reflection,—it will be seen
that the water is too violent to admit floating gold to come to rest in
such situations.
CHAPTER XXII.
Cost of transporting Goods from the several embarkadaries to the mines—Price of
Merchandize in the mines—Cost of Provisions—Price of Medical Services—
Administration of Justice—Manner of spending the Sabbath.
From the two principal embarkadaries upon the St. Waukeen and
Sacramento rivers of California, provisions and mining 129
implements are transported to the seat of mining operations
at exorbitant costs.
On passing up to the mines from a place calld Stocton, upon the St.
Waukeen, our company hird a teamster to carry our goods and
implements, for which we paid him, for one wagon load, more than
fourteen hundred dollars, rated at 30 cents per pound. Afterwards
during the summer, goods were carrid on pack mules at a somewhat
less cost. It may also be added, that conveyances were got up for
the accommodation of passengers between Stocton and the mines,
a distance of 70 or 80 miles, at a charge of 2 ounces of gold dust for
each passenger, which, according to its value in California, is worth
$32.
From Sacramento city, the present head of navigation upon the

Sacramento river, similar prices are chargd for the transportation of
goods into that quarter of the mining district.
The price of merchandize at the mines is quite dissimilar to prices in

the States. Tea, best, per pound, is worth from $2 to $4. Common
sizd frying pans at $8. Tin pans, a large size, at $8 apiece. India
rubber elastic cots at $50 to $75 each. Calf-skin shoes, per pair, at
$8, and boots at $16. An ordinary article of ax-helve at $3. Lumber,
scarce, at $2 per ft. Pint tin cups at $1.50 each. Coarse sheeting, 50
cents per yard.
The cost of provisions ranges somewhat as follows. Flour is worth,
per pound, from 75 cts. to $1. Pork, per pound, $1. Beans are sold
by the pound, at $1 per pound. Rice, per lb., 62½ cents. Light
bread, per loaf of one pound, $1. Beef, 25 cents the pound. Potatoes
are sold by the pound, at 50 cents. Green peas preservd in air-tight
jars, per pint, $4. Onions, per pound, $2. Public meals, $2.
* * * * * * * *
Medical services are likewise high, in the mining district. Each visit,
near to patient, is 1 oz. of gold, or $16. If a week’s attendance is
requird, no reduction upon each visit is made. For extracting a tooth,
$10 is chargd. Very extravagant prices are chargd for distant visits.
* * * * * * * *
In relation to the administration of justice in the mining district,

wherever a sufficient assemblage of miners exists to be 130
thought worthy of judicial attention, an alcalda or justice of
the peace is appointed, who presides over the judiciary department,
with almost as unlimited sway as an emperor. And although in
addition to an alcalda, a sheriff is appointed to a permanent office,
and cases are almost universally tried by a jury, which is summond
by the sheriff, yet they are generally selected of a stamp congruous
to the feelings of the alcalda. From the decisions, no appeal can ever
be made, whether right or wrong. I would likewise remark, that
decisions are very apt to be made against the party having the most
gold, and especially if one of the parties is rather low in
circumstances. Such a state of judicial dispensation may seem
somewhat objectionable, at first thought, but when we reflect, that
where no legislation exists, lynch law is the only mode of dispensing
justice, to which men can well resort, and this is so terrific in its
consequences of criminal justice, that rogues tremble in view of its
administration. Much more civility and less theft exists in the mines
than might at first be supposd.
The costs of legal services may be arrangd somewhat as follows:
Alcaldas, for each suit, 1 oz. To the sheriff, 1 oz. To each juryman,
half an ounce of gold,—and legal pleadings are often enormous,
even to $100 for the service of an hour or two.
The several foregoing costs of transportation, price of merchandize,

costs of provisions and medical services, are very often increasd or
diminishd, according to location, distance, or difficulty of
transporting, and also the season of the year.
* * * * * * * *
There is a consideration, likewise, in relation to spending the

Sabbath amongst the gold mines of California.
The reader may greatly wonder what is the mode of spending the
Sabbath there, when I say to him, that the Sabbath appears as
silent as the house of mourning. Seldom is a man seen with his
implements in his hands, laboring for gold. All around is quiet,
except now and then a few horsemen are passing from one little
town to another, for purposes best known to themselves. What,
then, is the wonderful employment or idle condition of miners upon
that day? Alas! every public tent through the whole mining region is
resorted to for gambling. In each of these tents, stands from 131
one to four or six monte tables, around which, miners of all
classes assemble to risk their fortunes. These tables are arrangd
with small or large sums of money, by one or more persons,
according to the ability of the person or persons that establish them.
The sums of money so arrangd are calld banks, or monte banks. On
opposite sides of the table, sit two men, who manage the affairs of
the bank, and deal the cards by which the fate of bettors is
determind. This game at cards is carrid on from morning till night,
and often through the following night till twilight breaks upon them,
with the stillness and quiet of a religious assemblage.
132
DESCRIPTION OF CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER XXIII.
Alta or Upper California With respect to Agriculture—Climate and Health of Alta
California—Navigation of its two principal Rivers—Some of the principal Towns
of Alta California—Its Bays and Harbors.
It can hardly be imagind, how the business of agriculture can be

carrid on successfully in a country circumstancd like Upper California.
In the mountainous portions, grain can not do well without resort to
irrigation, and this, from extreme cost, can not well be done on an
extensive scale.
The low country of the great valley of the St. Waukeen and
Sacramento, is not unfrequently inundated a month or two, during
the latter part of the winter, which renders passages from one part
of the valley to another by land, entirely impracticable, and although
along the borders of those two large rivers, and to some distance
outward from them, there is a good soil, yet it is well known to
farmers, that wheat will not live but a few days, entirely immersd in
water—so that the wheat crop could never be depended upon as a
safe investment.
Along the borders of these rivers, in some places, the native grasses
are of a tolerable growth. Outward toward the base of the mountain,
the earth becomes so dry during the summer, that vegetation is
entirely dried up. It however arrives at maturity, at a stinted growth.
I have seen native oats growing upon the plains of the great valley.
These also are not very enormous in size. Notwithstanding, they for
awhile furnish good grazing for the roaming cattle of the country,
upon which, and the short bunch grass growing upon some of the
hills, they become very fat during the summer. But as the 133
grasses of the country are of so stinted a growth, farmers
cannot live in crowded communities, as in the States, but at
distances of from 10 to 20 miles apart. Locations of this kind are
calld ranches, or rancheros, and farmers so living often own several
hundred head of cattle and horses.
* * * * * * * *
The climate of California, of which I shall next speak, varies

considerably in different parts of the country, according to its
distance from the ocean or from the Neveda mountains, or the
unevenness of the surface of the country.
In the mountain district of the Neveda range, the climate was

describd in the geography of that portion of California.
Lower down and westward, along the great valley, the climate is
milder, through the whole of the year. I believe the large rivers of
the valley are not frozen during the winter, and the weather in
summer is quite warm. Thus far from the axis of the Neveda
mountains eastward, to the two great rivers westward, during the
summer season, the sky is serene, and the stars and planets shine
with great splendor.
No dew falls in that part hitherto describd, during the hottest season
of the year, and travelers may lie upon the ground without exposure
from the unhealthiness of a damp ground and a moist atmosphere.
Farther outward, and along the coast, the country is much of the
time during the year, coverd with fogs, which render it unpleasant,
and in some measure unhealthy. The town of San Francisco, most of
the year, is envelopd in a thick fog, during much of the night and the
following day, till 10 or 11 o’clock, after which time the wind
becomes of sufficient strength to clear away the fog, which often
renders the remainder of the day unpleasant. This town, from the
almost continued dampness of the atmosphere, and the unavoidable
use of mineralizd water, can hardly be considerd a healthy place.
Dysentery and fever seems to be the prevalent disease.
I had nearly forgotten an idea which I now recollect to have heard,
relating to the dryness and purity of the atmosphere of California. It
has been said that the flesh of animals may be hung up in 134
the open atmosphere, till it becomes perfectly preservd by
drying, without salt, and during such process, no annoying insects
ever disturb it—and also, that a man would never die there, except
by being dried up.
It is true, that the Spaniards have a mode of preserving the flesh of

the ox, by cutting it into very small strips, and hanging it upon
strings cut from the raw hide, where it is exposd to the heat of the
sun. In this way, meat could be preservd in any of the States, but if
it be left in large masses, and so circumstancd that any part of it is
kept from drying immediately on the outside, the green fly, an insect
common to that country as well as the States, is presently found to
be a loathsome intruder.
* * * * * * * *
When I left the mining district for the valley, on my way to San
Francisco, on the 13th of October, I saw eight or ten vessels lying at
Stocton, and at the head of Suisan bay, three or four more, and at
the head of Pablo bay, six or seven more. These, with ten or twelve
lying at Sacramento city, and as many more scatterd along the two
rivers and in the several bays, added to about 130 which I counted
in the harbor of San Francisco, on my arrival there, will make about
175 vessels within the country of California. Most of the vessels lying
in the harbor of San Francisco, were inactive, for want of help to
work them.
The business of transportation upon the two rivers, St. Waukeen and
Sacramento, I believe to be as profitable as any that is attended to
in California. When I left, two small steamers were constantly plying
between San Francisco and Sacramento city, and another was being
put together at Suisan bay, for the navigation of the St. Waukeen.
More busines at present is done upon the rivers by launches, a small
vessel of only one mast, than by any other vessel. These are more
easily managd than large ships, along the intricate windings of those
extremely crooked rivers, but so soon as a sufficient number of
steamers can be obtaind for the business of the rivers, other means
of transportation will in a great degree cease.
* * * * * * * *
That portion of Alta California, where at present men’s conceptions

are most vivid, and where at every corner, pass or avenue, 135
the lively turn of the foot is seen, and where men’s views and
feelings to-morrow will not be what they are to-day, and where also
the sight of the golden streams from the Neveda mountains produce
electrical shocks upon all persons, whose hearts are tund to chant
the new and animating lays of later scenes of better days, and
where nearly all of the “Elephant,” in his varied and portentous
displays, is seen—may be comprisd within the small tract of country,
over which the waters of the two principal rivers, Sacramento and
St. Waukeen, flow. Along these waters, are several newly laid out
towns, together with some of ancient Mexican date.
San Francisco is situated upon a side hill, on the south side of the bay
of the same name. Its inhabitants were reckond, on the first of
November, ’49, at 25,000, though six months before there were
scarcely 5000. Such has been the rapid progress of San Francisco.
The town is 10 or 12 miles within the entrance of the bay from the
ocean.
At the head of Pablo bay, is a newly laid out town, calld Benetia. It
lies on the north side of the strait between Pablo bay and Suisan
bay. This strait will doubtless bear the name of Benetia. The town
will ultimately be a pleasanter one than San Francisco. One mile east
of Benetia, upon the same side of the strait, the United States have
establishd an arsenal.
At the head of Suisan bay, is a new town calld Western New York.
This town lies on the south side of the waters of the bay, upon, a
flat piece of ground, at the lower confluence of the Sacramento and
St. Waukeen. The delta between the upper and lower confluence, is
about 20 miles in length. New York, situated as it is, will command
the business of both rivers, and if it is lucky enough to avoid being
inundated once a year, will ultimately be a place of considerable
importance.
At the present head waters of navigation for the St. Waukeen, upon
a slough about three miles distant from the river, is a town calld
Stocton, the principal embarkadary for the south division of the
mining district. This town is situated on low, flat ground, which rises
but little above the waters of the river, at lowest stages. When the
country around is overflowd with water, this town must 136
necessarily suffer much inconvenience therefrom.
The last town which I shall here mention, is Sacramento city. Like
Stocton, it is situated at the present head waters of the Sacramento
river. It serves as the principal embarkadary for the northern mining
region, as Stocton does for the south, and from this place, provisions
and implements are carrid to all parts of the northern mining region.
The place is more than half as large as San Francisco, and is fast
improving.
* * * * * * * *
Before closing the subject of California, a few remarks concerning its

bays and harbors may not be uninteresting.
The Bay of San Francisco is nearly surrounded by high hills, with a

narrow entrance from the ocean, and now and then an island is
interspersd, to hide the scenery of its waters from the hills
contiguous to the town of San Francisco. It is large enough to
contain the shipping of the whole world, and its waters are not of
inconvenient depth for anchorage.
Next above this, lies Pablo bay, or Bay of St. Paul. It is inferior in size,
but ships can anchor in any part of it, and lie at all times with a
tolerable degree of safety.
At the head of Pablo bay, commences Suisan bay, which extends

upward to the delta that divides the two rivers, Sacramento and St.
Waukeen. The waters of this bay are so shoal that vessels have
difficulty in sailing over it, except directly along its channel.
The distances across the several bays are as follows. From San
Francisco to Pablo bay, is about 10 miles, and through Pablo bay to
Suisan bay, is 40 miles, and Suisan bay differs but little from 50
miles in length, from Benetia to New York, at the head of the bay.
137
HOMEWARD BOUND.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Scenes on the Pacific Ocean.—Difficulty of reaching the harbor of Panama, by sail
ships.—Arrival at Panama.—The town of Panama, and its inhabitants.—Passage
across the isthmus, to Chagres.
After a stay in California of a little more than five months, I took my

departure for home by way of the ocean, on board a sail ship bound
for Panama, the 21st day of October, 1849. As there is often a
difficulty in getting out of the bay of San Francisco into the ocean,
with sail ships, on account of a strong wind that is much of the time
blowing through the straits eastward from the ocean, and the dense
fog that envelops the sea, at the entrance of the bay, we were
detaind nearly two days before we could pass the straits into the
ocean.
Our passage from San Francisco to Panama, was accomplishd in 40

days, a distance of about 4000 miles, tho’ along the coast, it would
not much exceed 3500. This passage was considerd by the master of
the vessel, as expeditious as is common upon waters of as little wind
as is not unfrequently witnessd upon the Pacific ocean.
Whilst on my passage from Oregon last spring, to California, I saw a

short distance from ship, a whale, in an attempt at running a race
with us. He kept along in a parallel course with the ship, one or two
miles, and then left us. Ship-masters say they will outrun the fleetest
ship.
But we saw on our passage from San Francisco to Panama, but few
of the monsters of the deep, so often describd in history and 138
romance, although this coast is the place to which whalemen
resort. At a distance from ship, we saw now and then a few whales,
spouting the briny waters high into the atmosphere—and then again,
a shoal of porpoises surrounding the ship—some of which, our
sailors caught with their hooks and lines.—The flesh of the porpoise
is of a reddish color, and coarse, but tolerably pleasant to eat.
The dolphin is a small fish of only two or three feet in length—and

has the power of changing its color. The flesh is said to be poisonous
in some degree, and is therefore not good for food. These fish are
shy and hard to take, except by stratagem.
Our captain is an old whaleman, and his vessel was fitted out from
Nantucket, for that purpose. On our way south,—he one day took 4
or 5 men into a whale-boat, and started out from the vessel in
pursuit of some black fish we saw at a short distance from us. We
had not watchd him long before we saw him returning with a large
black fish in tow of his whale boat. He presently came along side,
and down the halyards were let—to haul the monster upon deck,—
and in a few minutes, was seen stretchd athwart the ship, a giant
fish, weighing about 2500 pounds,—out of which, was obtaind 4
barrels of oil.
This was a specimen of whaling on a small scale. The fish here

caught, was a species of whale, and was organizd similarly. A few
inches from the end of his snout, upon the top of it, was a valve,
about 3 inches square, out of which, the animal spouts.
After tossing and rolling about upon the wide Pacific, till I was utterly
tird of my situation, we at length arrivd at the outer confines of
Panama bay, on Monday, Nov. 26. Although this bay is more than
100 miles wide at the entrance, yet it is so situated, that most of the
year, there is a wind from the Caribbean sea, blowing across the
continent outward from the harbor of Panama, which renders an
entrance into it slow and difficult. We, however, after tacking the
ship the tedious number of 10 times, arrivd in safety at the harbor of
Panama, on the evening of Friday, Nov. 30.
Our arrival at Panama, was an epoch of satisfaction to me, as 139

well as my fellow passengers, after having experienced so
many days of monotony upon the ocean.
The anchorage for ships is inconveniently situated from town, being

nearly 3 miles distant.
After having arrivd at the town, and wanderd over it somewhat, I

found it to be located upon a rock, formd of successive layers of
apparent lava. But as my opportunity of examining it was scanty, I
could not well determine its character. The town wears a dilapidated
appearance, from its extreme age, and a want of attention to
repairs. Many of the houses are large,—and three stories high, with
broken down roofs, and with grass growing out of every corner, and
upon the roofs. They have the oddity of being built partly of bricks,
and partly of stone, intermingld together in the body of the walls.
They have windows arrangd similar to windows in houses of the
states, but without sash or glass, being left entirely open. No
chimneys are built to any of the houses, and cooking is done with
small portable furnaces, or a fire is built upon the ground, between 2
small rocks set up edgewise, so as to contain the fuel. In the
cooking apartments, an arrangement is made for the escape of the
smoke at the top of the room, so that it may not communicate with
their dining or sitting rooms.
The town, previous to the gold excitement of California, was in a

great measure, vacant of inhabitants, and large and commodious
rooms may have been hird for the small sum of 12½ cents per day.
The streets are mostly narrow, but they are tolerably well pavd, and
are washd nearly every day for ¾ of a year, from the all copious
fountain of the heavens above. No drays or coaches are seen to mar
the beauty of the streets, and grass is seen growing even in the
middle of the streets, and along its sidewalks. This was once a
populous town, but now—like most other Spanish towns along the
western coast of America, is seen the marks of imbecility,
indifference and decay. They have a small market or two, to which
all classes indiscriminately, resort for their daily support. The town
next to the bay is walld around, upon which, a few cannon were
placd for its former defense.
The inhabitants speak the Spanish language. They are 140

cleanly in dress, plain in their manners, and familiar in their
conversation. They are unassuming in their style, and liberal in their
hospitalities.
I am inclind to think the character of the American Spanish has

hitherto been misrepresented. During my stay in California, I was
located among that people, and I ever found them willing to part
with half their last meal to feed a hungry man. Although the Spanish
ladies are almost universally neat washers, yet their is a want of
taste in their dress, it being loosely, though not fantastically adjusted
about their persons. In their behavior, their sitting and reclining
postures have an unchaste appearance, though this may arise from
want of proper training.
The width of the isthmus from Panama across to the bay of Darien,
is not much different from 50 miles—but by the way of the old
Panama road to Chagres, the distance is about 64 miles. Through
this route the present emigration passes.—From Panama, there is a
portage of about 24 miles, to Cruses, a town of about 150 houses,
at the present head waters of the Chagres river. There is also,
another town of similar importance, about 5 miles below, upon the
Chagres river, calld Gorgona. To this town, also, there is a road
which leads off from the Cruses road about half way distant from
Panama to Cruses.
The present Cruses road is probably of as ancient date as the town

of Panama. It has once been pavd, and a tolerably good road for
pack animals to pass, but too narrow to admit of carriages. Across
the portage, the country is uneven, though not mountainous, and
much of the way, the road is cut through hills of soft rock. At
present, the pavement is almost all broken up, and the road is
muddy and disagreeable to pass, much of the year, even with pack
animals. Most of the property that now passes that road, is carrid
upon the backs of native citizens,—though horses or mules can be
hird at either end of the rout for the transportation of property.
The houses of Cruses and Gorgona, and also a few scattering

houses along the portage, are made of Bamboo, a reed which grows
very tall, but small in size. These reeds are set upon the ends, and
firmly crowded together to the size of the requird wall. At the
corners of these walls, are set posts of sufficient strength to 141
support the roofs, which are thatchd of the cocoa leaf. After
the roofs are completed, no rains can penetrate them. The slender
appearance of these houses, seems to be a proof that no tornados
or heavy winds exist along the isthmus,—and some families live in
tenements of nothing but a roof placd upon posts in the form of a
Dutch barrack.
The remainder of the way from Cruses to Chagres, is down the

Chagres river,—a stream of considerable importance in time of high
water, though not of sufficient depth to admit of the navigation of
any but small class steamboats, in times of common stages of the
river.
The country across the isthmus truly indicates a want of yankee

enterprise. No agricultural interests are resorted to for the support of
the inhabitants. All appears drear, and the country is thickly coverd
with low, leafy kinds of timber, heavily laden much of it, with vines of
various kinds, pending their branches near to the ground. Now and
then, however, along the way is seen a small opening or lawn, where
a few cattle are grazing—and these of the thriftiest kind,—indicating
the advantages which might be derivd from the improvement of the
soil upon the isthmus.
CHAPTER XXV.
Town of Chagres—Its inhabitants—Trip to New Orleans—Thence up the Mississippi
to St. Louis—Arrival home.
Chagres is a town of some over 150 houses, situated on the South

American side, at the mouth of the Chagres river. The houses are
like those of Gorgona and Cruses, many of which appear to be of
considerably ancient date. The ground upon which the town stands,
is of but little elevation above the waters of the river, and it seems
that it must inevitably become inundated, should a strong wind
continue to blow a considerable time from off the Caribbean 142
sea. This town, as also Gorgona, Cruses and Panama,
belongs to the republic of New Grenada. Bogota is the capital of this
republic, and is situated interior, several hundred miles to the south
of Chagres. An entrance to the mouth of the Chagres river, by sail
ships, is often attended with the danger of being wreckd on the
beach. Hence, a steamer is kept at the harbor for the conveyance of
passengers from them, at a distance of 2 miles, where they are
obligd to anchor.
At the entrance of the river and contiguous to the town, upon a

projecting eminence, is an old, dilapidated fort, with a large number
of brass cannon scatterd about upon the walls. There appear to be a
few soldiers strolling about the fort, but with a total indifference to
the attention which a fort requires for its requisite abilities, in an
emergency.
The inhabitants of Chagres have more of negroes and negro blood in

them than the citizens of Panama, Cruses or Gorgona, but they are
of similar stamp with their neighbors in that part of America, and
speak the same language. The females dress much in lawns and
other light clothing, as is most suitable for the climate. The religion
here, and mostly throughout this part of the country, is Roman
Catholic.
The bells of the churches are generally hung in the windows, or

outside, near the ground, at their entrances. The cross-bar on which
they are hung, often contains two bells, so that the ringing of them
is frequently done by two persons, in quite a ludicrous manner. The
mode of ringing is performd by each person’s taking a small hammer
or stick, and striking upon the outside of the bells, keeping time with
each other, similar to the beating of two drummers.
* * * * * * * *
Saturday, Dec. 8th.—Embarkd on board brig Major Eastland, bound

to New Orleans, and arrivd there, Thursday, December 20th. Our trip
was a tolerably short and pleasant one, for the season of the year.
We experiencd no storm upon the Caribbean sea, nor any through
the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing of importance was experiencd on the
way, to change the monotony.
On the 21st, I left New Orleans by steamboat, for St Louis, a 143

distance of 1200 miles by water, though probably not much
exceeding 600 direct. The old towns of Natchez and Vicksburg are in
a decayd condition. Memphis appears to be the most thriving town
between New Orleans and St. Louis.
Monday, Dec. 31st, I found myself at the St. Louis levee, after
struggling with floating ice for a day or two, the latter part of the
distance. I left St. Louis, Jan. 2d, 1850, and arrivd at Knox co., Ill.,
Jan. 8th, having been gone from home, one year, nine months and
five days.
On my arrival at home, I found my friends in a state of health,

though many deaths in town had occurd during my absence, and the
place had exceedingly improvd.
* * * * * * * *

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1 Missing Links and Dawn Monkeys / 1

17. Fossil Epipremnum fruits 106

lower molar structure shared by adapiforms

Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and the Physical

oppressive heat. My persistence is rewarded when I split apart another

complete enough that, at least in broad strokes, we know how humans

mals that ﬁrst evolved alongside the dinosaurs, or immediately follow-

Figure 1. Major differences in cranial anatomy distinguish prosimians from anthropoids.

himself uncovers many fossils, simply because he exposes so much fresh

Figure 2. The author and Wen Chaohua at Locality 1 in the

mediate between living prosimians and anthropoids. This precious fossil

sockets of tarsiers are almost completely enclosed by bone. In contrast,

Decades after the original publication of The Descent of Man in 1871,

his views were subsequently vindicated, it is still something of an intel-

of consideration whether Pondaungia does not partially ﬁll the gap

By the time Pilgrim got around to publishing his description of Pon-

types include incisors, which in humans are roughly chisel-shaped; ca-

Figure 4. The holotype lower jaw of Amphipithecus mogaungensis

the Burmese fossils to play a central role in debates about anthropoid

Pondaungia. Indeed, the fragmentary specimens that were known at the

perts to doubt the anthropoid status of Eosimias. As a result, our fate-

speciﬁc place at a certain time. This information can be crucial in deter-

primates—to invade the trees and take on a highly arboreal lifestyle—

Among the Primates of today, the series tree shrew–lemur–tarsier–

According to Le Gros Clark’s ladder paradigm of primate evolution,

adigm equates the origin of anthropoids with achieving an important evo-

The second variety of gold is that which is creek-washd,—the

Gold is found in dry ravines, creeks, and in basins of rivers, weighing

Lost, or erratic gold is sometimes found in the creeks among the

Some of this gold is in pieces of several dollars value, but most of it

The third variety of gold is that which may be denominated bar,

If no more could be said of water, than of other matter of the earth,

Running water, in the light here intended to be explaind, is that

First, if water were made to pass downward thro’ a straight duct or

If an observer stands on the bank of a creek, during a time of high

Again, if a lateral stream of water flows into a creek, similar or

If an obstacle, as a rock or other body, protrude in the current of a

Rock gold, or that which is disseminated in dust or fine particles

After having found a lead of gold, he excavates upward and

The miner never need be long at a loss to determine whether there

In some instances in dry ravines, where slate rock occurs, it is

Mode of Searching for the Second Variety.

It is more difficult to point out a successful mode of searching for

In prospecting for gold in those creeks, the miner may select a