The above 1893 newspaper drawing forecasts what humans may look like in the "year million." It accompanied an article on our possible evolutionary direction that appeared in The World on December 3, 1893. "The Man of the Year Million" was a notion that HG Wells also explored. (Loren Coleman reposted the 1893 article over at Cryptomundo because the drawing bears an uncanny resemblance to a 1977 sketch of a cryptid called the Dover Demon.) From the 1893 article in The World:
In some of the most highly developed crustaceans, the whole alimentary canal has solidified into a useless cord, because the animal is nourished by the food in which it swims. The man of the year million will not be bothered with servants handing him things on plates which he will chew, and swallow and digest. He will bathe in amber liquid which will be pure food, no waste matter assimilated through the pores of the skin. The mouth will shrink to a rosebud thing; the teeth will disappear; the nose will disappear-it is not nearly as big now as it was in savage days-the ears will go away. They are already folded up from what they were, and only a little tip fast vanishing remains to show that ages ago they were long-pointed things which bent forward and backward to catch the sound of approaching enemies.
"1893 'Dover Demon' and the Man of the Year Million" (via Robert Schneck)
