Miscellaneous. 459 
production of our voluble contemporary will be to show what may 
be done by a good tall fellow in this line of business, especially when 
such a worker is unyoked from reason and judgment. We shall 
give a specimen of Dr. Hilgard’s paper—not to instruct, but to warn 
the student ; whilst the mere quotation of the author will be tanta- 
mount to putting him in the pillory. 
Thus, in page 418, speaking of what he calls “‘ the pterygo-maxil- 
lary extremity” (of the cranium), Dr. Hilgard says *: “ The fin or 
hand to this extremity we find in perfect likeness to a bat’s hands, in 
the lake muscalounge (masque-allongée, Esox sp., length 5 feet). 
The interior ones, agglutinated to the nasal vertebra, constitute the 
nasal bones of the face; the stout second forms the true mazillaries, 
with teeth, like the nasal bones inclusive of sesamoids; the third, 
a finger of five bones, forms the infra-orbital osselets, in likeness of a 
cartilaginous xostril-wing surrounding the jawless orbit ; the fourth 
is a long arcuate beam, with a terminal phalanx agglutinated, a 
labial forming the outer mask-bone of the upper jaw; and the fifth - 
or thumb, a labial stump as the thumb of bats and birds. The num- 
bers of digital phalanges, as of cyclar elements, may vary among the 
different cyclar numbers.” And in page 427 we have this profound 
utterance :—‘‘ The eye is the representative of the seed or focal cycle, 
forming the centre and climax of floral as well as visceral eyclosis.” 
Under the heading “‘ Somatic Strata, Visceral Cycles, and Cryp- 
togamee,” at page 424, we have the cytosporous, aérifero-mem- 
branous, scatent, incrustate-cancellate, and spiral elements, types, 
characters, and functions. To the first the following lucid passage 
applies :—“ The cytosporous or cell-shedding, pulverulent cycles’ 
function—the fervid and vital, fermentative and effervescent action—, 
we find largely and emphatically represented in the diffuse, cytoge- 
netic, and, par excellence, eremacaustic fungine thallus, mouldy, per- 
vasive, katalytic, chafing and consuming, under the form of fermenta- 
tion, the noctilucent decay of wood—and of putrid decomposition. 
Like the central caloric of Earth, it inhabits the du/é of substances. 
In animate organisms, we find its function repeated in the (fermenta- 
tively) specific action of cellular contents, of the glands, olfactorio- 
intestinal crypts, the brains and ganglia, the fat and marrow. The 
nerves supplying organs once severed, says Reclam, the specific 
action of the glands becomes tempestuously paramount, producing 
heat and excitement ; a proof of the inherency of bio-chemical action 
in the glands, while to the nerves, brains, and the ganglionic masses 
belong the specifically 4io-dynamie energies. The antheral process 
of fructification in Aroids is known to produce considerable heat. 
The sudatory mucorine spores, like a moist dew, fore-fashion per- 
spiration ; their fermentative exhalation of carbonic acid gas, re- 
spiration,” &c. &c. Ke. 
The art of finding silly similitudes and aptless analogies can neither 
be advanced much further than the author pushes it, nor more 
flauntingly arrayed in sounding words than in this classico-technico- 
American garment of wordy nonsense. 
* The italics are the author’s own. 
30* 
