306 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



and throughout life, and in every age and sex, which was more than 

 can be said of any other single diagnostic, whatever may be its im- 

 portance. Hence Mr. Gulliver proposed to define the two divisions 

 as follows : 



1. Mammalia, animals whose red corpuscles of the blood are des- 

 titute of nuclei. 



2. Oviparous vertebrata, animals whose red corpuscles of the 

 blood contain nuclei. 



He said there was no known exception to the accuracy of these 

 definitions, and that he had proved in 1839 that even the singular 

 oval corpuscles in the blood of Camelidcc were in size and structure 

 truly mammalian. 



The largest corpuscles among mammalia were shown to be those of 

 the whale, the great ant-eater, and the elephant ; and the smallest, as 

 originally described by Mr. Gulliver, those of the musk deer. The 

 largest corpuscles in the vertebrata are those of naked reptiles, and 

 the most regular or least variable those of birds. 



Thus the microscope is fairly enlisted into the service of systematic 

 zoology. The subject was followed out in detail throughout the 

 different classes and orders ; and so plainly, that an observer might, 

 by remarking the structure of the blood corpuscle, arrive immediately 

 at results which, without the aid of the microscope, would have 

 formerly puzzled the most eminent comparative anatomists. One 

 minutest drop of the blood, for example, of the duck-billed creature, 

 Ornithorliynclius paradoxus, would have shown it to belong to the 

 mammalia, and this even in the most immature specimens ! 



DETERMINING THE ANTIQUITY OF SKELETONS. 



Some time ago two human skeletons were found in stone coffins at 

 Vertheuil, in the department of Seine, at Dise. The bones, though 

 brittle, were in a perfect state of preservation, and everything tended 

 to show that these skeletons had been buried many centuries ago. 

 M. Conerbe, a chemist of some note, having obtained the shoulder- 

 blade of one of these relics of past ages, subjected it to analysis, and 

 found that it contained only ten per cent, of organic matter, besides 

 the usual mineral substances of which bones are composed. Now, as 

 fresh bones contain thirty-three per cent, of organic matter, it follows 

 that the bones of the skeletons at Vertheuil had lost twenty-three per 

 cent, of organic substances. From this fact M. Conerbe has endeav- 

 ored to deduce the age of the bones he has examined. M. Vogelsang, 

 he observes, has found that bones which had been buried eleven hun- 

 dred years scarcely contained any organic matter ; whence M. Con- 

 erbe concludes that three per cent, of organic substance disappears 

 every hundred years. Applying this rule to the bones found in the 

 earth at Vertheuil, he fixes the year 1110 as the probable period of 

 the inhumation of these bodies, a conclusion which tallies with the 

 archaeological observations made by M. Leon Drouin, of the Acad- 

 emy of Bordeaux. Hence M. Conerbe's rule is, to divide by three 

 the loss of organic matter ascertained in a bone, the quotient will 

 then represent its age in centuries. This rule, M. Conerbe admits, 

 may be liable to considerable modifications from various circ urns tan- 



