474 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY 



mandibular visceral cleft, being regarded as repetitional of those 

 of the maxillary and mandibular divisions to the mandibular 

 cleft. So far as I am aware, von Kupffer is the only observer 

 who has given this startling conclusion support, in his famous 

 Studlen (Hf. I. Kopf Acipenser, Miinchen, 1893)., and from the 

 nature of other recent work on the genesis of parts of the 

 cranium hitherto thought to be wholly trabecular in origin, it 

 might well be further upheld. As for the discovery of the 

 nerve, I have been lately much interested to find that Mr. E. 

 Phelps Allis, jun., an investigator who has done grand work in 

 Cranial Morphology, has recently and independently arrived at 

 a similar result. It was while working in my laboratory in July 

 last that he mentioned the fact to me. Remembering that your 

 father had published the aforementioned hints on the subject, 

 and recalling conversations I had with him, it occurred to me 

 to look into his unpublished MSS. (then being sorted), if per- 

 chance he had gone further. And, behold ! there is a lengthy 

 attempt to write the matter up in full, in which, among other 

 things, he was seeking to show that, on this basis, the mode of 

 termination of the notochord in the Craniata, and in the 

 Branchiorto midae (in which the trabecular arch is undiffer- 

 entiated), is readily explained. Mr. Allis's studies are now 

 progressing, and I have arranged with him that if, in the end, 

 his results come sufficiently close to your father's, he shall give 

 his work due recognition and publicity. 



Among his schemes of the early '8o's, there was actually 

 commenced a work on the principles of Mammalian Anatomy 

 and an Elementary Treatise on the Vcrtebrata. The former 

 exists in the shape of a number of drawings with very brief 

 notes, the latter to a slight extent only in MS. In the former, 

 intended for the medical student and as a means of familiarising 

 him with the anatomical " tree ' as distinct from its surgical 

 " leaves," your father once again returned to the skull, and he 

 leaves a scheme for a revised terminology of its nerve exits 

 worthy his best and most clear-headed endeavours of the past.* 



* Concerning this he wrote to Professor Howes in 1890 when giv- 

 ing him permission to denote two papers which he was about to pre- 

 sent to the Zoological Society, as the first which emanated from the 

 Huxley Research Laboratory : " Pray do as you think best about the 

 nomenclature. I remember when I began to work at the skull it seemed 

 a hopeless problem, and years elapsed before I got hold of the clue." 



And six weeks later, he writes : " You are always welcome to turn 

 anything of mine to account, though I vow I do not just now recollect 



