When the
last full-blood Tasmanian died in 1876, a new chapter was written in the
story of the modern evolution of the human race.
No such stories are told about the white settlements on this continent,
even before the days of quarantine and scientific medicine. There is no
other adequate explanation of the difference, than that the two races
have evolved to a different degree in their resistance to these
diseases. It is easily seen, then, that man's evolution is going on, at
varying rates of speed, in probably all parts of the human race at the
present time.
We do not mean, of course, to suggest that all the natives who have died
in the New World since the landing of Columbus, have died because the
evolution of their race had not proceeded so far in certain directions
as had that of their conquerors. But the proportion of them who were
eliminated for that reason is certainly very large. In the more remote
parts of South America the process is still going on. Recent press
dispatches have carried the account of the University of Pennsylvania's
Amazon Expedition, under the direction of William C. Farrabee. In a
letter dated March 16, 1916, the leader told of the discovery of the
remains of the tribe of Pikipitanges, a once populous tribe of which a
chief, six women and two boys alone are left.
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