Show W A BABES S footprints similarity OF THE SOLE OF AN I 1 INFANTS FANTIS FOOT AND PALM show that the young foot na ilas that are pre pro bencile the sole soles of Dion monkey keyso feet interesting observation observations bret II Il artea artes miner who after his interview jeryle yr with the babe whose advent had been a in matter a ater of such interest to the occupants of roaring camp held up his finger pad and remarked lie ile wrestled led with it is now cited by the learned in science as having ea expressed a significant biological truth the singular clinging power of 0 an infants fingers must have been observe observed d by any one who has bag been subjected t to 0 that species of violence the babe can have bare no use for any such strength and this excess of c power is said by the evolutionists to be a quality which the race acquired when it lived among the branches of trees and has not yet lost dr louis robinson has published an account of some experiments which he be had made upon this subject these experiments were made in the cases of more than sixty children all of whom were under a month old and at least half of whom had Z been less than one hour in the world with i two exceptions all of these babies were r I 1 able to hold onto a finger or a stick three quarters of an inch in diameter by their I 1 hands hanging as it if f from rom a horizontal bar r I 1 and sustaining the whole weight of their f bodies for at least ten seconds the same writer has contributed to the i nineteenth century an article on the foot ot of a baby with the intention of showing 9 that its characteristics are prehensile he ile i says that there are two classes of feet those them which are used only for progression I 1 md and those which have more complex I 1 functions in the first class come all th the 0 hoofed animals the construction of the I 1 foot in this class is simple as its functions are simple it has to sustain the weight of the animal and Is therefore very robust a 1 characteristic for which man has found an artificial substitute in the boot among feet of the second kind would be those 0 of f I 1 cats tor for instance which have besides the I 1 A po power w er of locomotion claws with which to climb f the apes by reason of the very corn complex plex c functions and construction of the foot t would have a special claim to be put in this thi class climbing with claws is simply walking with the added power to drive I 1 the claws into the bark but the feet of a monkey in the branches of a tree ru running ing ff away from a cat or a snake have much r more difficult and complicated offices to perform the foot of a monkey must be ir prepared to seize at almost any angle a branch of a tree with a firm grasp or in an instant to clasp a spray of fine twigs and r cling to them now although the foot of man is at ip arese prese present nt used only tor for locomotion it baa has I 1 the same complicated system of muscles sf that the hand has it has indeed the same game muscles there being only one muscle in the hand a small ono one with no attachment f to the bone for which there Is not a corresponding k sp pon ding muscle in the foot but how bow is S it that these muscles which are for the most part useless remain a part of the human anatomy the answer of tho the e evo lut is that any part of the animal voi acono economy m which lias has become inbred remains after it ban has ceased to bo be useful unless it I 1 should be injurious and the human foot is said not to be injurious but the feet of very young infants have bare a resemblance to those of monkeys which adult feet do not have in the first place 1 the toes of babies are more easily moved than those of adults the great tools toe is I 1 shorter than the tile second and third and is K separated from the other toes by a wide ina ak teal A very young baby often holds his foot very like a fist list the four outer toes being bent downward and showing a disi knuckle on the other upper side and the great toe being bent and turned inward ac across ross the dole sole when the foot is in this position the great and little toes a approach P under the others and dr robinson has seen one baby in whom they very nearly touched any slight irritation of the kin of the sole of the foot will cause the infant to close the toes as if to grasp the r object which has caused the irritation I 1 moreover a close exa examination m of the sole of an infants foot shows that it contains lines just like those of the palm of the hand band when the toes are bent downward thesa these the sa become creases showing the natural folding places of the integument when the act of grasping takes place dr robinson lias has examined d these lines on the feet of a very large number of infants first taking I 1 photographs of the feet and later which lie found much better impressions of the I 1 1 infants feet on paper borne soma of these im 1 press lons show very distinct lines which the writer says correspond closely to the lines which in palmistry are the line of the heart the line of head an and d the line of life 11 these lines disappear almost as soon ao as the children begin to walk they can tc scarcely arcely bo be seen at fourteen months and are only present in a few cases after the in fant has reached two years in adults no 0 trace is to bo be seen of them when the foot Is I 1 at rest and only the faintest indications when the toes are bent to the utmost there if it no analogous case among tho the oth vc er animals of band liko lines existing on I 1 the feet in infancy and disappearing later I 1 but do the lines which dr robinson has I 1 found on the feet of newborn infants exist I 1 i on the feet of monkeys the lines on a babas foot are band lIke and indicate a prehensile utility and a monkeys feet are of course prehensile but are the lines identical alf the writer admits that be has met with some difficulty in pursuing his r researches regarding monkeys feet monkeys objecting strenuously moreover the lines differ greatly la in the different families of monkeys but it was found that the higher the ape the more do its foot lines resemble those of a newborn infant these investigations tending to confirm the evolutionists theory of the origin and history of man macnew new york times |