284 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nary temperature (65 to 75), a cold room 

 (40), and a hot room (90), and tbe watches 

 are tested in the vertical and horizontal 

 positions. Eight classes of certificates are 

 given, corresponding with different combina- 

 tions of the several tests and their relative 

 duration. In cases where no certificate 

 can be given the movement will be returned 

 to the maker, with a statement of its per- 

 formance. 



Snakes and Snake-Poison. Professor 

 Huxley, in a lecture on "Snakes," at the 

 London Institution last December, said that 

 no creatures seemed more easily destroyed 

 by man and few less able to defend them- 

 selves ; yet there were not many animals 

 gifted with so many faculties. The snake 

 can stand up erect, climb as well as any 

 ape, swim like a fish, dart forward, and do 

 all but fly in seizing its prey. The destruc- 

 tiveness of snakes to man is illustrated by 

 the fact that twenty thousand human lives 

 are yearly lost in India by their poison, 

 and it might safely be said that they are a 

 more deadly enemy to our race than any 

 other animals. The speaker pointed out 

 some very curious arrangements in the ana- 

 tomical mechanism and jawbones, illustra- 

 tive of the statement that the snake can 

 not properly be 6aid to swallow his prey ; 

 he holds on to it rather, gradually working 

 it down its throat in a most leisurely man- 

 ner, but never letting it go. He requires a 

 very fully developed and effective appara- 

 tus of salivary glands for this purpose. The 

 poison-bag of the venomous snakes is no- 

 thing but a modification of the salivary 

 glands of the harmless species, the struc- 

 ture of both kinds being in almost all re- 

 spects not only parallel throughout, but 

 almost identical. As another instance of 

 the close relationship, it was shown that 

 the sharp channel-needle which conveys the 

 poison of the cobra and its congeners is 

 nothing but the development of the tooth 

 which these murderous reptiles possess in 

 common with innocuous snakes. The fact 

 that the salivary gland was the poison- 

 laboratory of the deadly snakes, as well as 

 the known properties of the saliva of dogs 

 or other living creatures affected with ra- 

 bies, appeared to Professor Huxley to point 

 out the direction in which lies the solution 



of the difficult problem of the cause of 

 snake-poisoning, and of a possible antidote 

 against it. At present there was no man 

 living who could heal the bite of the cobra, 

 except by cauterization in very fresh cases. 

 A fitting supplement to Professor Huxley's 

 remarks is afforded by facts given in the 

 reports of the Snake-Poison Commission of 

 Calcutta, showing the number of snakes 

 killed, and of deaths by snakes and wild 

 animals in India. In 18*75, 270,185, in 

 1876, 212,371 snakes were killed in all 

 India. The deaths by snakes and wild ani- 

 mals were 21,000 in 1875, 15,946 in 1876. 

 These figures do not give the whole num- 

 bers, for the registries are incomplete in 

 the English districts, and no registries are 

 kept in the native states, so that it may be 

 found hereafter that many thousand deaths 

 must be added to complete the catalogue of 

 annual disaster from snakes. The excess of 

 numbers in 1875 is accounted for by the 

 fact that the floods of that year drove the 

 snakes to the high-roads and exposed places. 

 Remedies are said to be known for the poi- 

 son of all the snakes except the cobra. 



Development of the Limbs of Saurians. 



Professor O. C. Marsh has noticed some pe- 

 culiarities in the limbs of the sauranodon, 

 the new saurian described by him in Janu- 

 ary, 1879, which give it a special interest. 

 Both the anterior and posterior limbs are 

 less specialized than in any other known 

 vertebrate above the fishes. In the fore- 

 paddle, the humerus alone is differentiated. 

 Below this, the bones of the forearm, the 

 carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges are es- 

 sentially rounded, free disks, implanted in 

 the primitive cartilage. The structure of 

 the posterior limb is substantially the same. 

 The most striking features of the limbs are 

 the presence of three bones next below the 

 humerus and the femur and articulating 

 with them, corresponding apparently with 

 the radius, intermedium, and ulna in the 

 fore-limb, and with the tibia, intermedium, 

 and fibula in the hinder limb, and the fact 

 of six digits. These characters are held to 

 mark a stage of development below that 

 seen in any other air-breathing vertebrate, 

 and only approached by the limb of the 

 icthyosaurus. The intermedium seems, in 

 the process of differentiation, to have been 



