114 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Here, then, are a series of observations by different observers from 

 different standpoints, all telling the same story. Osteologists have 

 long ago pointed out the reptilian affinities of the monotremes from 

 the character of the skeleton. The anatomists in like manner have 

 insisted upon certain reptilian characters as well as avian characters 

 from its internal structure. A trained zoologist now studies it on the 

 ground, and finds it laying true eggs, a fact that had been insisted upon 

 several times in the present centuiy. More significant still, the study 

 of these eggs shows that they go thi'ough a reptilian mode of develop- 

 ment. And now the paleontologist brings to light the remains of 

 a reptile from the Permian rocks, and again establishes the same re- 

 lations. 



In this connection the examination by Dr. Henry C, Chapman* of 

 a fetal kangaroo and its membranes is of interest. The foetus he ex- 

 amined was fourteen days old. He states that it had no true placenta, 

 and says, " If the parts in question have been truthfully described and 

 correctly interpreted, as partly bridging over the gap between the pla- 

 cental and non-placental vertebrates, they supply exactly what the 

 theory of evolution demands, and furnish, therefore, one more proof 

 of the truth of that doctrine." 



THE UNIIEALTHFULK^ESS OF BASEMENTS.f 



By W. 0. STILLMAN, M. D. 



IN many American cities basement-houses are quite the rule ; and 

 rooms, partly or almost completely below the street-level, are in 

 common use as work and dining rooms, and occasionally for living 

 and sleeping purposes. 



A rather casual examination of the standard works, on hygiene, of 

 Parkes, Buck, Wilson, and others, fails to reveal any condemnation of 

 basements, though the dangers arising from damp cellars and founda- 

 tions are freely discussed. A not unnatural conclusion might be that 

 these eminent sanitarians lived in an air of such hygienic innocence 

 and purity that the possibility of the enormity of basement-living had 

 not occurred to them to be reprehended. 



The value of ground-space in modern cities has caused architects 

 to plan for the occupancy of perpendicular space below as well as 

 above the surface of the earth. In very few dwellings are the inhabit- 

 ants protected from earth-damp, whether a basement or cellar inter- 

 venes. Every physician recognizes the dangers arising from damp and 

 cold, not to specify from noxious exhalations, and unhealthy subterra- 

 nean air-currents. Rheumatism, consumption, malaria, neuralgia, etc., 



* " Proceedinga of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences," 1881, p. 468. 

 f From a pajjer read before the Albany County SIcdical Society, March 28, 1887. 



