The Oceanographical Museum at Monaco 287 



one side, whichever is the weaker, may give way. In such an 

 accident, beyond being broken, the ribs need not be seriously 

 disturbed, and with the return to the surface or more moderate 

 depths, they would fall into their places again, and that all 

 the more easily because there is little or no pressure of one part 

 on another, every part of the body of a totally immersed animal 

 being water-borne. In such conditions recovery would be 

 rapid and the joints perfect, as can be seen to be the case in 

 the skeleton in the museum. 



The accident to this whale is very suggestive. In a well- 

 known experiment, Paul Bert rapidly reduced the pressure of 

 the air in the lungs of a dog by a not very large fraction of an 

 atmosphere, when the thorax immediately collapsed, every rib 

 being broken. When a whale is struck and sounds, if only to 

 a depth of one hundred metres, the pressure on its body is 

 increased tenfold in a few seconds. How does its body stand 

 it? 



It is certain that the cachalot finds its prey in water of 

 considerable depth. When it has seized it, can it swallow it 

 in situ, in a medium of water under very high pressure? The 

 dentition of this animal, a formidable row of teeth in the lower 

 fitting into corresponding sockets in the upper jaw, makes 

 it certain that, when it has seized its prey it can hold it indefi- 

 nitely. It has been observed that the cachalot sometimes 

 takes its prey to the surface and swallows it there. Is this 

 accidental or habitual? If habitual is it not another link with 

 tin- far-back time when its habitat was the air and the land? 

 These are some questions suggested by an attentive visit to- 

 the Museum of Monaco. 



In the museum, room is provided for a department of 

 meteorology, a science which, especially as regards its applica- 

 tion to the higher regions of the atmosphere, owes much to 

 the participation of the 1'riin < in its development. Until he 

 din-rtnl his attention to it, the ballons-sonde, carrying tln-ir 

 lit of valuable instruments, were very frequently lost. 

 Now, tli. inks to the method of keeping the "dead reckoning" 

 of the balloon, developed and brought to perfection on the 

 " Piincesse Ali ." if it i- followed for a few minutes during its 



