diversity or the unity of the race from a single pair which gives rise
to the greatest controversy.

There is a wide diversity of opinion among ethnologists on this
question. Agassiz was followed by French writers, among whom were
Topinard and Herve, who held firmly to the plurality of centres of
origin and distribution. Agassiz thought there were at least nine
centres in which man appeared, each independent of the others. Morton
thought he could point out twenty-two such centres, and Nott and
Gliddon advanced the idea that there were distinct races of people.
But Darwin, basing his arguments upon the uniformity of physical
structure and similarity of mental characteristics, held that man came
from a single progenitor. This theory is the most acceptable, and it
is easily explained, if we admit time enough for the necessary changes
in the structure and appearance of man. It is the simplest hypothesis
that is given, and explains the facts relative to the existence of man
much more easily than does the theory in reference to diversity of
origins. The majority of ethnologists of America and Europe appear to
favor the idea that man came from a single pair, arose from one place,
and spread thence over the earth's surface.

_The Primitive Home of Man May Be Determined in a General Way_.--The
location of the cradle of the race has not {68} yet been satisfactorily
established. The inference drawn from the Bible story of the creation
places it in or near the valley of the Euphrates River. Others hold
that the place was in Europe, and others still in America. A theory
has also been advanced that a continent or group of large islands
called Lemuria, occupying the place where the Indian Ocean now lies,
and extending from Ceylon to Madagascar, was the locality in which the
human race originated. The advocates of this theory hold to it chiefly
on the ground that it is necessary to account for the peopling of
Australia and other large islands and continents, and that it is the
country best fitted by climate and other physical conditions for the
primitive race. This submerged continent would enable the races to
migrate readily to different parts of the world, still going by dry
land.

There is little more than conjecture upon this subject, and the
continent called Lemuria is as mythical as the Ethiopia of Ptolemy and
the Atlantis of Plato. It is a convenient theory, as it places the
cradle of the race near the five grea