ii MAN AND GORILLA. 101 



wards in the neck, concave in the back, convex in 

 the loins, or lumbar region, and concave again in 

 the sacral region; an arrangement which gives 

 much elasticity to the whole backbone, and dimin- 

 ishes the jar communicated to the spine, and 

 through it to the head, by locomotion in the erect 

 position. 



Furthermore, under ordinary circumstances, 

 Man has seven vertebrae in his neck, which are 

 called cervical; twelve succeed these, bearing ribs 

 and forming the upper part of the back, whence 

 they are termed dorsal; five lie in the loins, bear- 

 ing no distinct, or free, ribs, and are called lumbar; 

 five, united together into a great bone, excavated 

 in front, solidly wedged in between the hip bones, 

 to form the back of the pelvis, and known by the 

 name of the sacrum, succeed these; and finally, 

 three or four little more or less movable bones, so 

 small as to be insignificant, constitute the coccyx 

 or rudimentary tail. 



In the Gorilla, the vertebral coluhm is similar- 

 ly divided into cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and 

 coccygeal vertebrae, and the total number of cer- 

 vical and dorsal vertebra?, taken together, is the 

 same as in Man; but the development of a pair of 

 ribs to the first lumbar vertebra, which is an ex- 

 ceptional occurrence in Man, is the rule in the 

 Gorilla; and hence, as lumbar are distinguished 

 from dorsal vertebrae only by the presence or ab- 

 sence of free ribs, the seventeen " dorso-lumbar x 



