124 Mr. Edward McCurdy [March 19, 



America is applied to the Western Continent. It is also the earliest 

 on which the severance of the western coast of America from Asia is 

 clearly indicated. 



The famous mathematician FraLuca Paciolo, whose " Surnina de 

 Aritmetica Geometries " Leonardo had acquired at Pavia on its first 

 appearance, came to Milan in 1496, and Leonardo immediately became 

 associated with him in his studies and drew the figures, sixty in 

 number, for his treatise " De Divina Proportioned' The two left 

 Milan together two months after the entry of the French, and 

 Paciolo accompanied him to Venice, where he continued to be pre- 

 occupied with the study of mathematics. 



During his second residence in Milan the chair of anatomy at 

 Pavia was held by Marc Antonio della Torre, and.Vasari bears em- 

 phatic testimony to the manner in which the two mutually assisted 

 each other in anatomical research. Leonardo's own studies, as his 

 manuscripts show, extended over more than a quarter of a century. 



All his writings connected with the subject seem as it were frag- 

 ments of a larger purpose, charted, defined, explored, but never 

 fulfilled, of which his researches in anatomy, zoology, physiology, 

 embryology and biology are the allied and component parts. Dis- 

 cerning the essential unity of man and the animals, " because," as 

 he says, " all land animals have similar members, that is to say, 

 muscles, nerves and bones, and these members do not vary at all 

 except in length and thickness " (MS. G 5 verso), he may be said to 

 have founded comparative anatomy. Drawings now at Windsor show 

 the gradations of the human type merging into that of various 

 animals. He tracks the mystery of life from the conception and the 

 foetus through growth to maturity, and so to the gradual wasting of 

 the tendons and ail the physical phenomena of death. 



" I have dissected," he says, " more than ten human bodies, 

 destroying all the various members, and removing even the very 

 smallest particles of the flesh which surrounded these veins without 

 causing any effusion of blood other than the imperceptible bleeding 

 of the capillary veins. And, as one single body did not suffice for 

 so long a time, it was necessary to proceed by stages with so many 

 bodies as would render my knowledge complete ; and this I repeated 

 twice over in order to discover the differences." 



The drawings made in the course of these investigations, now in 

 the Royal Collection at Windsor, were examined in the time of 

 George III. by the famous surgeon William Hunter, who, approach- 

 ing them with all the natural professional mistrust, thus made the 

 amende honorable : — 



" I expected," he says, " to see little more than such designs in 

 anatomy as might be useful to a painter in his own profession. But 

 I saw, and indeed with astonishment, that Leonardo had been a 

 general and deep student. When I consider what pains he has taken 

 upon every part of the body, the superiority of his universal genius,. 



