THE RACE MANKIND SPRANG FROM.

Evening Post, Volume LXVII, Issue 150, 25 June 1904, Page 13

THE RACE MANKIND SPRANG FROM.

A ncAV suggestion regarding the evolution of mun is put forward by Dr. Klaatch, who is Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology at tho Ueklolburg University, in Germany. For twenty years he has been .studying the. .skulls and skeletons of racen iv all j parks of the world, and lie lias come to the conclusion that the race from which mankind has sprung is typified in a more perfect manner by tho aboriginal of North Quecualnnd than by any other living race. In no part of the world, ho thinks, ran tho evolution of the genus, homo in relation to the original typo bo better studied. Tho Professor is now in Noith Queensland conducting investigations, and eomo interesting resulU aro expected. Some- tinie ago the interest of students of anthropology was greatly roused by a report that native* had been found in New Guinea who had lost the use of their nether Jimbs owing to their habit of living in tree*. It was hoped thai theSeliginntui Expedition, which is at present in New Guinea investigating the question of cancer in natives and making general enquiries in tho interests of anthropology, would have obtained further information of the curious race, but reports concerning the expedition which have just been received show that up to the present it has failed to iind any people- answering to flic description. The expedition has seen natives who live for a part of the year in huts perched on trees, but they have the use of all their limbs, and anthropologically they do not materially differ fiom the oilier natives. Tho expedition is at present in the we»tcrn portion of New Guinea. It has ascended tho Benshack River for some distance, and many interesting photographs have been taken of t tic natives who live on iU banks. Those natives do not, as bos been supposed, exhibit tho characteristics of the Australian aborigines, but aro frizzy-haired Papuans.