ioo Occipital Sane. [Book IX. 



toides or mamillaris. Within it is compofed of fmall 

 cells, which have a communication with the organs of 

 hearing. About an inch farther forward, the fecond 

 procefs begins to rife from the bone ; and having its 

 origin continued obliquely downwards and forwards, it 

 becomes fmaller, and is at length united with a cor- 

 refponding procefs of the os maize, or cheek-bone. In 

 this manner is formed a bony jugum or yoke, under 

 which the temporal mufcle pafies. Hence this procefs 

 of the temporal bone has been called zigomatic. From 

 the inferior unequal part of the os temporum the third 

 procefs ftands out obliquely forwards ; the fhape of it 

 has been thought to refemble the ancient ftylus fcrip- 

 torius, and it is therefore called the ftyloid procefs, 

 The chief ufe of thefe procefles is to afford attachment 

 to mufcles. Numerous finuofities or deprefllons of 

 this bone, by increafing the furface, anfwer the fame 

 purpofc. This bone has alfo feveral perforations, one 

 of which, fituated between the zigomatic and maftoid 

 procefles, is the orifice of a large funnel or canal, which 

 leads to the organ of hearing. 



The os occipitis, fo called from its fituation at the 

 back part of the head, like the other bones of the cra- 

 nium, is externally convex, and internally concave. 

 Its figure is an irregular iquare, or rather a rhomboid ; 

 of which the angle above is generally a little rounded ; 

 and the lower angle is extended to the inferior part of 

 the cranium, in the form of a wedge, and is thence called 

 the cuneiform procefs. At the bafe of this triangular 

 procefs, on each fide of the great foramen, through 

 which pafifes the fpinal marrow, are obferved two large 

 oblong procefTcs, called the condyles, which ferve for 

 the articulation of the cranium with the firft vertebra 

 of the neck. Around the great foramen, the edges 

 >re unequal, for the grmer adhefion of the ftrong cir- 

 cular 



