iiSO Progress of Natural History, 



jrials, he has arrived at some important conclusions. Intoxi- 

 cation, which alters the powers of motion nearly as much as 

 injury to the cerebellum would do, deadens almost all sen- 

 sations ; and several known facts relative to the sleep of those 

 affected by wine or opium, the nature of their dreams, the 

 walking while asleep, &c., appear to M. de Buzaraingue to 

 prove the active part which the cerebellum takes in producing 

 sensations, and the recollection it retains of them. According 

 to him, it is the cerebellum which presents the part to the ce- 

 rebrum, and it is thus that the successive actions of animals 

 cooperate with each other; but the cerebellum has no direct 

 influence on these actions, and the brain alone can command 

 them. 



Dr. Foville, physician to the lunatic hospital at Rouen, has 

 also presented to the Academy a memoir concerning the brain, 

 in which he places the connection of the different parts of this 

 organ, both between themselves and the medulla spinalis, in a 

 new light. 



MM. Isidore GeofFroy St. Hilaire and Martin have made 

 some very interesting observations on the canals in the corpus 

 cavernosum of tortoises and crocodiles, which communicate 

 with the interior of the abdomen, and even, as it would appear, 

 with the exterior. 



In the article on Zoology, M. Cuvier first states, that M. 

 •GeofFroy St. Hilaire, in his lectures on Mammalia, which have 

 been published, has given a detailed account of the mole, and 

 communicated to the Academy several of those parts which 

 concern this animal. Among a number of anatomical details, 

 he has endeavoured to explain the causes of the diminutive 

 size of the eyes and optic nerves, and states them to be the 

 immense developement of the olfactory apparatus, the size of 

 the nasal conchs, the thickness of the nerve of the upper jaw, 

 ^nd the extraordinary volume of the olfactory lobe of the 

 brain. M. GeofFroy believes that the optic nerve does not 

 exist within the skull, but that it is placed outside, close to the 

 fiye, and, being unable to penetrate into the skull by the usual 

 method, on account of the compression of the sphenoid, ac- 

 cording to the words of the author, is obliged to get in by the 

 iiearest way, and this nearest way is by attaching itself to the 

 trunk of the fifth pair. What is very remarkable, and what 

 contradicts several theories concerning the special functions of 

 different lobes of the brain, is, that those lobes which are be- 

 lieved to be the optic thalami, are, in the mole, above rather 

 than below the proportionate size of those animals who have 

 the clearest and strongest vision. Added to these observations, 

 the author favours us with some very interesting particulars on 



