fish may contain tlie elements for fashioning a bird, 

 and the bird for fashioning a quadruped, the snake, 

 if put in the series, must stand below the fish, 

 which has additional appuis, although the snake is 

 evidently of a more perfect organization. 



Leaving this point, which we are not sufiiciently 

 versed in comparative anatomy to debate, we will 

 only add that the snake, furnishing the most purely 

 simple method of locomotion among the vertebrate 

 animals, affords on that account the clearest ground 

 for tracing the elementary motions. 



Our object is not only to propose a theory, but 

 in case this theory be the true one, to make it 

 popularly inteUigible. This object, and want of 

 skill in composition will, we hope, excuse consider- 

 able proHxity where a good writer could have sub- 

 mitted his views to the decision of qualified judges 

 in much fewer words. 



Two articles published in the August and Octo- 

 ber, 1853, numbers of the Fclaireur, a mihtary 

 journal issued for some time by Colonel Cowman, 

 and afterward by General J. Watts de Peyster, and 

 one or two allusions to the subject possibly made 

 in a series of articles in the Army and Navy 

 Journal^ on "Marching of troops in large bodies," 

 July 2d, 1864, and following ; " The discipline and 



