130 A YORKSHIRE NATURALIST 



Here the former is not, as in the higher animals, 

 a mere temporary provision, but a permanent struc- 

 ture; and, lastly, we reach the higher mammalia, 

 including man, in which the chondriform bone is 

 abundantly developed in the early stages of life, but 

 where it is a temporary scaffold, to be removed when 

 the permanent membraniform bone is sufficiently 

 strong to bear the weight of the superstructure. 

 Even here, nature does not waste her materials: 

 where two bones rub against each other at a 

 large joint, as at the shoulder, the friction would 

 soon produce mischief, were it not reduced to a 

 minimum. Whilst the cartilage disappears else- 

 where, a layer of it permanently covers the ends of 

 the two bones, which meet, as at the shoulder-joint ; 

 and underlying this cartilage, as Sharpey was the 

 first to notice, we find, permanently, a small amount 

 of chondriform bone. 



The above two memoirs, the objects of which I 

 have endeavoured to make intelligible, effected my 

 election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, 

 June 1854. 



