82 



HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



adult, the number of the difference having become 

 suppressed, seven in the neck and three in the caudal 

 region, suggestive of a Plesiosaurian-like ancestor 

 with a much longer tail and neck. In a human 

 embryo of the fifth week — when it is from 9-10 mm. 

 long — -there are 38 vertebrae ; at the 6 th week the 

 36th, 37th, and 38th, coalesce together to form one, 

 and when the embryo attains the size of 19 mm. it is 

 minus in number 4 vertebra?, having 34, the normal 

 number in the adult. Dr. Goodhart (J. Anat. and 

 Phys. ix. p. 9) describes a vertebral column of a foetus 

 in which 4§ instead of 7 cervical vertebra? were 

 present. Professor Humphrey, on p. 123 of his work on 

 the Human Skeleton, describes a case by Otto, in 

 which § of the. nth dorsal vertebra was absent ; and 

 another by Sandifort, in which § of 7th cervical, and 

 also of the 9th and loth dorsal vertebrae were deficient. 

 And there is in the Museum of Middlesex Hospital a 

 skeleton of a full-grown female, in which associated 

 with, and the cause of, lateral curvature of the spine 

 h of the 3rd dorsal vertebra is absent. 



And not only is there sometimes absence of a half- 

 vertebra, but there also occurs now and then an addi- 

 tional one. In Python sebcc, Professor Albrecht has 

 described in the eleventh volume of the "Bulletin du 

 Musee Royal d'Histoire Naturelle de Belgique " for 

 1885, a case of this kind, in which the skeleton, consist- 

 ing of 333 vertebrse,;there was a half- vertebra interca- 

 lated between the 195th and 196th segment on the left 

 side. Rokitanski, in his " Pathological Anatomy," vol. 

 iii. p. 230, records a case in the human subject in which 

 there were four \ vertebrae with corresponding half 

 arches and processes in addition to the normal number, 

 and these were so placed as to counterbalance one 

 another, and form four curves in the spine, two in the 

 dorsal, one in the dorso-lumbar and one in the sacral 

 region. This last case is only satisfactorily explicable 

 on the ground of the suppression of mesoblastic somites 

 during development, and that man at one period — or 

 at any rate his ancestors in the evolution of things — 

 had more than our own number of thirty-four and 

 were functional. There is in our own anatomy 

 evidence of this, in the arrangement of the cervical 

 nerves to show that one element at least has, in 

 comparatively recent times, undergone abortion in 

 that portion of our vertebral column. Again it is 

 beyond confutation, that as the movements of the 

 hand increase in delicacy so do the number and size 

 of the cervical vertebra? diminish. In birds, where 

 the movements of the beak rival in precision those of 

 the hand, we have a greater number of neck vertebrae, 

 and their mobility is made more easily adaptable by 

 means of the saddle-shaped articulations; 



"When we bring into our remembrance the fact, that 

 sharks and serpents may possess 300 vertebra?— in 

 Alopecias vulpcs there are 365 — and compare this to 

 man's number, this alone ought to make us suspect 

 suppression. And this is still more marked when we 

 put alongside the frog with his 9 vertebrae only, and 



beside these again the whole race of mammals. We 

 should at any rate expect the frog sometimes to have 

 occurring in his spine an additional vertebra, and 

 there is no disappointment, for Bourne, in the 

 "Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science," vol. 

 xxiv. 1884, in a paper " On Certain Abnormalities of 

 the Common Frog " reports a case in which there were 

 ten vertebrae, the additional one being in the sacral 

 region, and a similar specimen has been described 

 by Howes, in " Anatomischer Anzeiger " for 1886. 



{To be continued.) 



EOZOON CANADENSE, THE PSEUDO- 

 DAWN OF LIFE. 



By J. Walter Gregory. 



BY the recent visit of Sir Wm. Dawson, attention 

 has again been directed to the controversy 

 which raged so fiercely some twenty years ago, as to 

 whether Eozoon were fossil or not. Inspired by this 

 visit, and armed with the mass of new material 

 placed at their disposal by the death of Dr. 

 Carpenter, Professor T. Rupert Jones, and his able 

 collaborator, Mr. Sherborne, are preparing a book in 

 which to defend Eozoon from the attacks made upon 

 it in the Memoir of Professor- Moebius, and the still 

 more recent volume of Professors King and Rowney. 

 As Moebius's Memoir has never been translated, and 

 the work of the Galway Professors is too technical 

 for those who do not enter the subject with the 

 proper mineralogical training, a sketch of its history 

 and a brief statement of the case against Eozoon may 

 not be amiss. The whole subject is certainly one of 

 absorbing interest, as the origin of life on the earth is 

 probably the most important of the unsolved problems 

 that still perplex the record of its early history. The 

 answer to the enigma remains shrouded in a fog and 

 as yet we possess no guide through its gloom and no 

 scientific light strong enough to dispel its mists and 

 remove this fascinating field of enquiry from the 

 hazy lands of speculation to the ever-widening 

 regions of determined fact. All classes of thinkers 

 have engaged in the search, but hitherto their 

 efforts have been in vain. Physicists have 

 advanced their guesses to the existence of some life- 

 bearing meteorite ; chemists have striven to crown 

 their long course of successful achievement in the 

 manufacture of organic products by the creation of 

 life itself, geologists have hoped by the study of its 

 earliest forms to discover the lines along which 

 biological research ': must proceed, and materialists 

 have published their theories to answer their great 

 Sphinx riddle. But the problem has resisted alike 

 the dreams and theories of philosophers, and the 

 retorts and microscopes of scientists, and the banner 

 of the theologian still waves triumphant on the last 



