VOL. XXXV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 255 



from urine, and from bones. Hence again it is evident, he thinks, that this 

 tophaceous gouty substance is composed of the same principles* with the other 

 fluid and solid parts of the human body ; or, that the cause of the gout is no- 

 thing else but a volatile, alkaline, corrosive salt, which by corroding the sen- 

 sible membranes about the joints, occasions those acute pains, called the gout. 



Of Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants. Part the second.^ By Sir Hans 

 Sloane, Bart. N° 404, p. 497. 



Here Sir Hans Sloane offers some remarks on divers accounts of bones and 

 teeth found under ground, met with in several ancient and modern authors, and 

 which give him an opportunity of examining into the skeletons, and parts of 

 skeletons, which are shown about as undeniable monuments of the existence of 

 giants. 



And first, as many of those bones and teeth, which are kept and shown about 

 for bones and teeth of giants, have been found, on a more accurate inspection, 

 to be only the bones and teeth of elephants or whales, it may from thence 

 very probably be inferred, that others also, which for want of a sufficient de- 

 scription cannot be accurately enough accounted for, must have belonged either 

 to these or to some other large animal. Thus, the fore fin of a whale, stripped 

 of its web and skin, was not long since publicly shown for the bones of a giant's 

 hand; and Sir H. S. has in his own possession, N° 1027, the vertebra of the 

 loin of a large whale, which was brought him from Oxfordshire, where he was 

 assured it was found under ground, and afterwards used as a stool to sit on. 

 Now if a computation had been made from the proportion of this vertebra to 

 that of the other parts of the skeleton, and all had been supposed to have be- 

 longed to a man, such a skeleton would have exceeded in measure, ail those 

 fabulous skeletons of giants mentioned by authors. 



Hence Sir H. S. observes, that it would be an object well worth the inquiries 

 of ingenious anatomists, to make a sort of comparative anatomy of bones; to 

 examine, with more accuracy than has been hitherto done, what proportions 

 the skeletons and parts of skeletons of men and animals bear to each other, 

 with regard either to the size, or figure, or structure, or any other quality. 

 This would doubtless lead us to many discoveries, and is otherwise one of those 

 things which seem to be wanting, to make anatomy a science still more perfect 



* From the experiments of Dr. WoUaston, Phil. Trans, for 1797, it appears that gouty tophi or 

 concretions, are resolvable into uric acid and soda. The deposition of such a saline matter upon the 

 ligamentous and membranous parts of the joints, will readily account for the sharp excruciating pain 

 which accompanies gouty inflammation. 



t See the former part at p. 240. 



