256 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



fore precede the carnivora, are far below some of them, such as the 

 dog and phoca, as regards their intellectual faculties. To obviate the 

 inconvenience resulting from this discrepancy between the physical 

 and intellectual qualities of animals, M. Chevreul proposes to classify 

 them by shelves instead of columns, as is now the case. Let us sup- 

 pose the centre of the upper shelf to be occupied by man ; then de- 

 scribing a circle from that centre, that the ourang outang, chimpanzee 

 and gorilla be placed at equal distances on the circumference, and 

 other inferior species of quadrumana further off from the centre, but 

 on the same shelf. Now let the lower shelf be devoted to the carniv- 

 ora, and let the centre be occupied by the best species, namely : the dog, 

 phoca, bear, and cat ; then the inferior species will be arranged further 

 and further from the centre, according to the degree of their intellec- 

 tual faculties. The advantage of this arrangement will be that the 

 dog, being inferior to the most perfect kinds of quadrumana, will stand 

 below them on the second shelf; but being superior in sagacity to the 

 makis, this circumstance is denoted by his being at the centre, and the 

 makis at a distance from it, though on the upper shelf. In the same 

 way other shelves may be arranged for the orders immediately inferior 

 to the carnivora in point of sagacity, and from this succession of shelves , 

 new relations may be discovered between species belonging to different 

 genera and orders. 



ON THE PHENOMENA CONNECTED WITH DEATH. 



Mr. Savory, in a recent lecture before the Royal Institution, London, 

 on the above subject, drew a broad distinction between what he termed 

 general death, and special, or molecular death. The latter occurs some- 

 time after the last breath has been drawn, since several functions of 

 the body, such as digestion, muscular contraction, and the circulation 

 of the body, may go on for some time after the change, we term death, 

 has taken place. In this aspect, the more important functions of ani- 

 mal life are suspended much sooner than those relating to our organic 

 life. So also, cold-blooded animals, and those with very simple organ- 

 ization, such as polyps and worms, retain vitality of various degrees 

 under circumstances fatal to such complex organisms as ours. In com- 

 menting on the various modes of dying, and the causes, whether aris- 

 ing from the suspension of the action of either of the three great organs 

 termed the " tripods of life," the heart, the lungs, and the brain, - - Mr. 

 Savory expressed his own conviction, that death was primarily occa- 

 sioned by either the sudden or gradual stoppage of the supply of blood 

 to the nervous centres. He also expressed his concurrence with the 

 statement of the late Sir Benjamin Brodic, that, in almost all cases, 

 the point of death is free from physical suffering. He duly described 

 and analyzed the signs of death, namely, loss of heat, the muscular con- 

 traction, termed " rigor mortis," the coagulation of the bipod, and final- 

 ly, decomposition. The last, he said, is always going on in life, but is 

 then accompanied by renewal ; this ceases after death. The body 

 then becomes subject to chemical and physical forces, and is resolved 

 mto its component elements, to be taken up again for the constitution 

 of new organisms. Death, then, is a condition of life. 



Essential Features of Life. Mr. Savory in the same lecture also 

 defined the essential features of life, when reduced to its simplest terms, 



