liv INTRODUCTION. 



process attention must first be paid to the almost straight and 

 sub-parallel course of the vessels in the pulp's substance, and to 

 the remarkable regularity of form and size of the meshes of the 



oi j'adressai mes premieres communications au Congres de Birmingham, je n'avais pu en avoir 

 connaissance." — Coraptes Rendus, Octobre, 1842, p. 680. 



In the 'Addendum to the Report of the Transactions of the Sections in 1839,' pubhshed 

 in the 'Report of the Eleventh Meeting of the British Association,' 1842; the Council of 

 the Association adduce the following testimony of the Editors of the Literarj' Gazette and 

 Athenaeum : — 



" Notices of Mr. Nasmyth's papers appeared in the Athenaeum and Literary Gazette of 

 the period : those journals usually obtain such notices either from authors themselves or from 

 reporters of their own : in the present case the Council have been informed by the respective 

 Editors, that the report in the Athenaeum of the two papers read to the Medical Section was 

 supplied, and the proofs corrected, by Mr. Nasmyth himself, and the notice of the geological 

 paper by the reporter of the Athenaeum ; and that the report in the Literary Gazette was drawn 

 up by the reporter of that journal, from a rough manuscript furnished to him by Mr. 

 Nasmyth." 



Upon these ' Reports,' furnished and corrected by Mr. Nasmyth, the following opinion 

 has been published : — 



" Reference having been made to us by a Council of the British Association for our opinion 

 whether the report of Mr. Nasmyth's paper, as published in the Literary Gazette and 

 Athenaeum, or in either of those two periodicals, or the report of that paper sent by Mr. 

 Nasmyth to Mr. PhilUps for publication in the Report of the Ninth Meeting of the Association, 

 held at Birmingham, is more correct with regard to the points under discussion between 

 Professor Owen and Mr. Nasmyth, we have carefully examined these several documents, 

 and it appears to us that the main point under discussion between these two gentlemen is, 

 whether the account of the process of dentition, contained in Mr. Nasmyth's paper, did or did 

 not comprise the theory that the ivory of the teeth is formed by the ossification of the pulp. 

 We find, with reference to this question, that in the accounts of Mr. Nasmyth's paper, given in 

 the Literary Gazette and Athenaeum, his opinions on that subject are involved in considerable 

 ambiguity ; for, while some passages in them would imply that he considered the proper 

 substance of the teeth as being formed by the addition of ossific matter in the original structure 

 of the pulp, commencing and proceeding on its surface, these reports contain, at the same 

 time, other passages, in which the theory of the ossification of the pulp is distinctly and 



