Rudiments. 51 



each other as the rest of the vertebrae are, during youth grow together 

 and become consolidated into one. This is a process of atrophy and a 

 sort of acknowledgment on the part of nature that she has built a use- 

 less organ. In our remote mammalian ancestors, these bones remained 

 separate during life, preserving the flexibility necessary to allow the 

 tail to wag. But, although we have long since discontinued the use of 

 a tail, nature continues patiently and aimlessly to build the stump as 

 she used to do. 



It is not likely that our posterity a million years hence, will be with- 

 out this reminiscence, but the progressive process of atrophy will cause 

 the consolidation of the bones to take place earlier in life, so that in 

 time they will be solid at birth. 



The tail is a venerable organ, dating back of the earliest vertebrates, 

 and it has been of immense service to all the tribes, under its many 

 modifications of form, as a rudder and propeller, as a fifth leg, as a 

 switch-about, and as a prehensile organ, as in the case of many mar- 

 supials and monkeys. 



Knox ( Races of Men ) observes that there are many people born into 

 the world with some sort of deformity due to arrest of embryonic de- 

 velopment. Some cannot extend their arms or legs to a proper degree; 

 some have webbed fingers or toes; some have no arms but merely hands, 

 like the whale; others, no legs but merely feet; some have hare lip. 

 ' ' On the best formed neck of man or woman, the finest openings may 

 occasionally be seen the remains of branchial arches or gills, which all 

 animals, man not excepted, have in their foetal state. " 



The occipital condyles in man, consist of two oval or oblong eminences 

 on the bottom of the skull, one on each side of the great foramen or 

 bottom opening of the skull. Their surfaces are smooth and convex, 

 and articulate with two corresponding smooth surfaces on the top of the 

 atlas the first of the neck vertebrae. The skull, therefore, rests on 

 these condyles. In the natural erect position of the backbone in man, 

 these condyles are level or horizontal. In the lower animals they stand 

 at an angle with the horizon. In the orang outang this angle is 37; in 

 the horse it is 90. 



' ' In the foetal head the occiput consists of four pieces. The first 

 piece, or basi-occipital bone of Owen, is separated from the two lateral 

 portions by a fissure running through the condyles; this piece remains 

 permanently separated in the cold blooded vertebrata, and in the African 

 head also, the basi-occipital bone is frequently retained. " The condy- 

 loid process is divided by a transverse ridge or groove into two distinct 

 articular surfaces, which are often in different planes. This is the case 

 in 30 out of 81 African skulls in Morton's collection, and in 4 out of 

 125 Caucasian skulls in the same collection. The condition of these con- 



