Miscellaneous, 459 



production of our voluble contemporary will be to show what may 

 be done by a good tall fellow in this line of business, especially when 

 such a worker is unyoked from reason and judgment. We shall 

 give a specimen of Dr. Hilgard's paper — not to instruct, but to warn 

 the student ; whilst the mere quotation of the author will be tanta- 

 mount to putting him in the pillory. 



Thus, in page 418, speaking of what he calls " the ptery go-maxil- 

 lary extremity " (of the cranium), Dr. Hilgard says * : " The fin or 

 hand to this extremity we find in perfect likeness to a bat's hands, in 

 the lake muscalounge (masque- allongee, Esox sp., length 5 feet). 

 The interior ones, agglutinated to the nasal vertebra, constitute the 

 nasal bones of the face ; the stout second forms the true mamillaries, 

 with teeth, like the nasal bones inclusive of sesamoids ; the third, 

 a finger of five bones, forms the infra-orbital osselets, in likeness of a 

 cartilaginous nostril-wing surrounding the jawless orbit ; the fourth 

 is a long arcuate beam, with a terminal phalanx agglutinated, a 

 labial forming the outer mask-bone of the upper jaw ; and the fifth 

 or thumb, a labial stump as the thumb of bats and birds. The num- 

 bers of digital phalanges, as of cyclar elements, may vary among the 

 different cyclar numbers." And in page 427 we have this profound 

 utterance : — " The eye is the representative of the seed or focal cycle, 

 forming the centre and climax of floral as well as visceral cyclosis." 



Under the heading " Somatic Strata, Visceral Cycles, and Cryp- 

 togamse," at page 424, we have the cytosporous, aerifero -mem- 

 branous, scatent, incrustate-cancellate, and spiral elements, types, 

 characters, and functions. To the first the following lucid passage 

 applies : — " The cytosporous or cell-shedding, pulverulent cycles' 

 function — the fervid and vital, fermentative and effervescent action — , 

 we find largely and emphatically represented in the diffuse, cytoge- 

 netic, and, par excellence, eremacaustic fungine thallus, mouldy, per- 

 vasive, katalytic, chafing and consuming, under the form of fermenta- 

 tion, the noctilucent decay of wood and of putrid decomposition. 

 Like the central caloric of Earth, it inhabits the bulk of substances. 

 In animate organisms, we find its function repeated in the (fermenta- 

 tively) specific action of cellular contents, of the glands, olfactorio- 

 intestinal crypts, the brains and ganglia, the fat and marrow. The 

 nerves supplying organs once severed, says Reclam, the specific 

 action of the glands becomes tempestuously paramount, producing 

 heat and excitement ; a proof of the inherency of bio-chemical action 

 in the glands, while to the nerves, brains, and the ganglionic masses 

 belong the specifically bio-dynamic energies. The antheral process 

 of fructification in Aroids is known to produce considerable heat. 

 The sudatory mucorine spores, like a moist dew, fore-fashion per- 

 spiration ; their fermentative exhalation of carbonic acid gas, re- 

 spiration," &c. &c. &c. 



The art of finding sjlly similitudes and aptless analogies can neither 

 be advanced much further than the author pushes it, nor more 

 flauntingly arrayed in sounding words than in this classico-technico- 

 American garment of wordy nonsense. 



* The italics are the author's own. 



30* 



