84 Professor Owen on the [Feb. 9, 



brain-expanded cranium. The hind limbs in man are longer in 

 proportion to the trunk than in any other known mammalian 

 animal. The kangaroo might seem to be an exception, but if the 

 hind limbs of the kangaroo are measured in relation to the trunk, 

 they are shorter than in the human subject. In no animal is the 

 femur so long in proportion to the leg as in man. In none does 

 the tibia expand so much at its upper end. Here it presents 

 two broad, shallow cavities, for the reception of the condyles of the 

 femur. Of these condyles, in man only is the innermost longer 

 than the outermost ; so that the shaft of the bone inclines a little 

 outwards to its upper end, and joins a " neck " longer than in other 

 animals, and set on at a very open angle. The weight of the body, 

 received by the round heads of the thigh bones, is thus transferred 

 to a broader base, and its support in the upright posture facilitated. 

 There is also the collateral advantage of giving more space to those 

 powerful adductor muscles that assist in fixing the pelvis and trunk 

 upon the hind limbs. With regard to the form of the pelvis, you 

 could not fully appreciate its peculiar modifications unless you saw 

 it, as here displayed, in contradistinction to the form of the pelvis in 

 the highest organised quadrumana. The short and broad ilium 

 bends forwards, the better to receive and sustain the abdominal vis- 

 cera, and is expanded behind to give adequate attachment to the 

 powerful glutei muscles, which are developed to a maximum in the 

 human species, in order to give a firm hold of the trunk upon the 

 limbs, and a corresponding power of moving the limbs upon the 

 trunk. The tuberosities of the ischium are rounded, not angular, 

 and not inclined outwards, as in the ape tribe. The symphysis 

 pubis is shorter than in the apes. The tail is reduced to three or 

 four stunted vertebrae, anchylosed to form the bone called " os 

 coccygis." The true vertebrae, as they are called in human anatomy, 

 correspond in number with those of the chimpanzee and the orang, 

 and in their divisions with the latter species, there being twelve 

 thoracic, five lumbar, and seven cervical. This movable part of the 

 column is distinguished by a beautiful series of sigmoid curves, con- 

 vex forwards in the loins, concave in the back, and again slightly con- 

 vex forwards in the neck. The cervical vertebrae, instead of having 

 long spinous processes, have short processes, usually more or less 

 bifurcated. The bodies of the true vertebrae increase in size from 

 the upper dorsal to the last lumbar, which rests upon the base of the 

 broad wedge-shaped sacrum, fixed obliquely between the sacro-iliac 

 articulations. All these curves of the vertebral column, and the in- 

 terposed elastic cushions, have relation to the libration of the head 

 and upper limbs, and the diff'usion and the prevention of the ill 

 effects from shocks in many modes of locomotion which man, 

 thus organised for an erect position, is capable of performing. 

 The arms of man are brought into more symmetrical proportions 

 with the lower limbs ; and their bony framework shows all the per- 

 fections that have been superinduced upon it in the mammalian 



