304 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



As seen in the carp, the fish usually examined for this purpose, 

 these ossicles of Weber seem to be attached upon the first two ver- 

 tebral bodies, — the stapes and claustrum ontlie first, and the mal- 

 leus and the incus on the second. But, if other Cyprinidce be exam- 

 ined, it will be found that the second vertebral body, apparently 

 simple in the carp, is really compound, and represents the bodies 

 of the second and third vertebrae, in many species separated by 

 an articulating cavity. In this way these vertebrae come under 

 the normal type, and these bones have the following signification, 

 according to this observer : the malleus (on the two sides) repre- 

 sents the branches of the inferior arch of the third vertebra, the 

 superior arch, of two wide pieces, being completed by an intercru- 

 ral bone ; the incus, the branches of the superior arch of tlie 

 second vertebra, the inferior being represented by two long trans- 

 verse processes joined to the vertebral body ; the stapes, the 

 branches of the superior arch of the first vertebra, the inferior 

 represented by two more or less long transverse processes joined 

 to the bod}'^ of the vertebra ; the claustrum, an intercrural bone, 

 in two halves, in /contact on the median line. 



In the Catostomi, the branches of the upper arch of the second 

 vertebra, or the incus, are ver}' rudimentar}', being a simple bony 

 nodule encased in the middle of tlie tendon which extends from 

 the anterior extremity of the malleus to the summit of the stapes. 

 This isolated position of a rudiment of a vertebral arch, outside of 

 the vertebral column, shows how the principle of connections 

 may lead an observer astra}^, unless he takes into account the laws 

 of morphology. 



ORGANIC FERMENTS ; OR, MOLECULAR GRANULATIONS. 



M. De Monchy, " ComptesRendus," February, 1868, finds these 

 very minute movable corpuscles in all concentrated solutions of 

 commercial bicarbonate of soda before filtration, and consiilcrs 

 them as organic ferments, as vegetable cells, since they act ch(;m- 

 ically like ferments in the transformation of cane-sugar and 

 fecula. In the experiments which he gives, the corj)uscles are 

 the only active agents, as neither bicarbonate of soda, or carbon- 

 ate of lime, pure, have any action as a ferment. He admits with 

 M. Bechamp (" Annual of Scientific Discovery," for 1868, p. 269), 

 that fermentations by the organic ferments of chalk, etc., are 

 physiological acts of nutrition ; the formation of an acid can be the 

 result only of a secretion effected by the movable corpuscles, thus 

 of necessity organized. These corpuscles lose their activity as 

 ferments at a t(imperature of 100° C, as also by contact with a 

 solution of potash, one-tenth, in which they are insoluble ; he 

 hence concludes that they are vegetable cells, which have already 

 undergone some degree of development; they can come only 

 from the air, in which the germs were in suspension, as it cannot 

 be maintained that organic matter could resist the high tempera- 

 ture employed in these experiments. Their presence in the com- 

 mercial articles explains the appearance of vegetable productions 



