2i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Dirgliatamas, and describes the sacrifice of the horse in very full de- 

 tail. In the eighteenth verse we read : 



" The axe approaches the thirty-four ribs of the qnick horse, beloved of the 

 gods. Do you wisely keep the limbs whole, find out each joint and strike." 



This passage is curious in many respects. It refutes the statement 

 of Strabo (xv., 54), that the Indians did not slaughter their victims : 

 " They do not slay the victim, but suffocate it, to the end that it may 

 not be offered to the god mutilated, but entire." It also seems to 

 imply that the horses then offered at the sacrifices liad only thirty- 

 four ribs. Tliis statement, however, startled even the orthodox com- 

 mentators in India, and Saya/?a remarks in his commentary on this 

 passage, that other animals, such as goats, etc., have only twenty-six 

 ribs, as might be proved by what he considers as far more convincing 

 than ocular evidence, viz., a passage from the "Brahmawas," in which 

 it is said, " Its ribs are twenty-six." In another passage, in his com- 

 mentary on the "/Satapatha brahmawa," xiii., 5, 1, 18, Sayana returns 

 to the same subject, but unfortxmately that passage, as edited by Prof. 

 Weber, is so corrupt that I at least cannot make sense of it, though it 

 is clear that Sayana says there that their ribs are thirty-six. Another 

 commentator, Mahldhara, explaining the horse-sacrifice, as prescribed 

 in the "Ya^urveda," seems to have no anatomical misgivings, but 

 states that the horse has thirty-four, goats and other animals twenty- 

 six ribs. 



I confess that I was myself very much puzzled bj^ the passage in 

 the " Rig- Veda." It was quite clear that tlie reading A-atustrimsat, 

 thirty-four, cannot be called in question ; it was equally clear that 

 that number would not have been mentioned except for some special 

 purpose. That it was the habit of the ancient Hindoos to count the 

 various bones of the human or animal skeleton, may be seen in the 

 " Law-book of Ya^navalkya," iii., 85, et seq. There we read : 



" The neck consists of fifteen bones, a collar-bone on each side, and the chin ; 

 two at its root, and the same on the forehead, the eyes, and the cheeks, and the 

 nose of firm bone. The ribs with their supports and the Arbudas {Zippen- 

 TcnorpeT) are seventy-two. Two front-bones, four skull-bones of the head, seven- 

 teen bones of the chest, these are the bones of a man." 



Similar passages occur elsewhere, and establish the fact that the 

 ancient anatomists of India made a point of knowing the exact num- 

 ber of the bones in the different portions of the bodies both of men 

 and animals. 



Not being able to find a satisfactory solution of my difficulty, I 

 applied to Prof. Huxley, and I am glad, with his permission, to print 

 the following letter, which offers a most ingenious, and, to my mind, 

 satisfactory solution : 



" 26 Abbey Place, N. W. 

 "My dear Sib: I have been much interested in M. Pi^trement's 'Memoire.' 

 His work ' Les Origines des Chevaux domestiques' is well known to me, but I 



