relative to Natural History, 321 



of the nervous system. In accordance with these considerations 

 the «kull has been decomposed into three vertebrae, and the 

 face into three others, placed relatively to each other like the 

 vertebrae of the body, but much more developed in the parts 

 which envelop the brain, because this organ is much more de- 

 veloped than the spinal marrow. Thus these bones are no 

 longer a special formation, but a repetition of the preceding 

 formations. 



M. Martins relates, in one of the notes Avhich he has added 

 to his translation, that the poet, as he walked in the cemetery 

 of the Jews at Lido, near Venice, picked up on the sand the 

 head of a ram, the skull of which was split longitudinally, and 

 that whilst looking at it the idea instantly struck him that the 

 face was composed of vertebrae ; the transition from the an- 

 terior sphenoide to the ethmoide seemed evident to him at the 

 first glance. This was in 1791) and at this time he did not 

 make known his idea. Sixteen years later it was laid down 

 by Oken that the head was composed of six vertebrae. Ac- 

 cording to Cams, this discovery may have been the result of 

 an inspiration altogether resembling in its circumstances that 

 of Goethe. Being in one of the ancient forests of the Brocken, 

 Oken saw at his feet a stag's head perfectly bleached ; he 

 picked it up, turned it, examined it, and cried out, " 'Tis a ver- 

 tebral column ! " M. Dumeril at the same time in France, from 

 considerations entirely different, announced to the Institute 

 the analogy of the head and the vertebrae, — an idea which 

 was at this period received with astonishment and even with 

 disapprobation. 



We may moreover notice among the special labours of 

 Goethe, his observations on the researches of Dr. Jaegger 

 upon the subject of the fossil bulls found in the neighbour- 

 hood of Stuttgard. Goethe seeks to prove in this article, that 

 the differences which exist between fossil and recent bulls 

 may be looked upon as the result of the perfecting of the spe- 

 cies during the centuries which separate the two periods. 

 His argument affords interest ; but it seems to us that the 

 poet plays almost as leading a part in it as the naturalist. 



Goethe took great interest in the famous discussion raised 

 in 1830 in the Academy of Sciences of Paris, upon the prin- 



