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European University College, they had heard we needed assis- 

 tance, they had taken Zoology and could they help in any 

 way? 



Our enormous collection of fishes from East Africa stood un- 

 touched, in sealed bottles and tins, packed in crates that were 

 piled up in the laboratory, an angular tower that reproached us 

 every time we passed. So we set the three young men to unpack- 

 ing these treasures and putting them into more suitable containers. 

 It was no pleasant task, formalin is stifling, and it was hot. They 

 laboured for many days and would accept no reward. We remain 

 grateful for their kind thoughtfulness and service. 



Even though the Coelacanth had been so badly mutilated, most 

 of the soft parts were there, and so, as before, I made a thorough 

 but more or less general investigation so as to be able to give 

 information that was eagerly awaited by scientists everywhere. 

 As was mentioned previously, the gills of the first Coelacanth were 

 lost, but these were intact and they were remarkable. Most fishes 

 have gills of cartilage (gristle), relatively soft, with 'gill-rakers', 

 soft finger-like projections, above. The gills of the Coelacanth 

 proved to be bony and hard, and instead of soft gill-rakers there 

 are teeth. In fact, stripped of the soft filaments below, they looked 

 almost like jawbones; they could easily be mistaken for them. 

 They showed at least that jaws and gill-arches had the same 

 origin. 



I found in the intestines a structure known as a 'spiral valve'. 

 If ever you open a Shark or a Ray, run the intestines through your 

 hand and you will come to a peculiar, rather hard, purplish part, 

 which you will see clearly has a spiral structure. Cut it open long- 

 ways and you will see that it is a device to make a short bit of gut 

 do the work of a much longer straight part. The digested foods 

 must go round and round, and so are exposed to longer absorp- 

 tion. This structure is characteristic of Sharks and Rays and not of 

 modern fishes, though it is found in one or two of the more primi- 

 tive types that still survive. The study of fossils had progressed 

 so far that some workers had come to suspect that Coelacanths 

 might have a spiral valve, and here it was. (Some other things 

 suspected to be present, like the internal nostrils, were not found.) 

 This type of intestine clearly carries one back to the very earliest 

 beginnings of vertebrate life or even farther. In the intestines I 



