504 
is altogether suggestive of a campanile. It is only when 
the eye is carried along the general range of the buildings, 
and it is noted that this tower is simply the architect’s 
contrivance for raising the chimney turret inthe case of this 
lower erection to the same height as the chimney turrets 
of similar aspect on the higher blocks, that the idea 
dawns upon the observer that this building may havea 
very different purpose to perform than affording accom- 
modation for religious worship and service. It is, indeed,a 
temple for the dead rather than for the living. It is pro- 
perly the Museum and Medical Schools of the Hospital ; 
and the lofty tower will be employed to waft the vapours 
of effete corporeal mortality well up into the purifying 
atmosphere. Its interior will be warmed by hot-water 
warmed air to feed the combustion of the open fires. 
This evil is entirely obviated by this plan of having half 
pipes and radiating coils, to cause a strong up-cast ; and 
will gather the air from brick channels of escape which per- 
meate all portions of the building. The most surprising 
thing about this terminal block of the Hospital is the vast 
amount of accommodation that has been got out of it by 
dint of good package and clever arrangement. It looks 
like a tolerable-sized chapel, and might really be no more, 
yet it really contains a very capacious Museum, four large 
Lecture Theatres, a Chemical Laboratory, a Dissecting- 
room, mortuary chambers, and students’ halls. It is, in fact, 
one of the most commodious and best ordered Medical 
Schools in the Metropolis. 
There is a long tunnelled way under ground, running 
to the chambers for the dead in this building, from the 
several Hospital blocks, from one part of which a branch 
passage leads to the wash-house and laundry. One of 
the mortuary rooms is to be arranged as a sort of Morgue, 
or reception room for friends who come to pay a last visit 
to the dead; and a pair of large gates opening upon the 
Lambeth Road will admit the hearse to this portion of the 
Hospital, when it comes to claim those portions of the 
remnants of vitality that have not found another mode of 
escape through the campanile tower. This “ old mor- 
tality” end of the Hospital nestles curiously close under 
spiritual over-shadowing. It is only separated from the 
battlements of the Archbishop’s palace at Lambeth by the 
stables and coach-house of the Treasurer of the Hospital. 
The new Hospital of St. Thomas promises to be one 
of the most complete and efficient of the hospitals and 
medical schools of the metropolis. R. J. M. 



ZOOLOGICAL TEXT-BOOKS 
General Outline of the Organisation of the Animal 
Kingdom and Manual of Comparative Anatomy. By 
Prof. Rymer Jones, F.R.S. (Van Voorst.) Fourth 
Edition. 1871. 
A Manual of Zoology for Students. By Dr, Henry Alleyne 
Nicholson. (W. Blackwood and Sons) 1870. 
HE mass of information which is continually and 
rapidly accumulating in every department of Natural 
Science, renders it increasingly desirable that every manual 
writer should zealously aim at combining terseness with 
accuracy, and, by a well-chosen selection of the most im- 
portant facts, exhibit the results of the more recent acquisi- 
tions of science. 
NATURE 


In the ponderous volume of 886 pages, 
' 
[April 27, 1871 

which now replaces the long-known “Comparative 
Anatomy” of Prof. Rymer Jones, the very opposite 
characters are painfully conspicuous, and we sincerely pity 
the student who has recourse to it for his instruction in 
zootomy. Not but what the book is both highly instructive 
and interesting, and exhibits conspicucusly the learning, 
patience, and zeal of its accomplished author. For all 
this, however, the youth who gets up his zoology and 
comparative anatomy from it, will find himself out of joint 
with and wanting, as regards the zootomy of the present 
day, while he will have wasted time over comparatively 
useless and antiquated details. 
The Rotifera are, indeed, strangely located, being 
described in one chapter with all the Crustacea except 
the Cirripeds, which latter are placed apart in a separate 
chapter. A still more important defect, however, and one 
almost incredible, is the complete omission of all reference 
to the Rhizocephala. After this it is not surprising that 
no notice is taken of those recent discoveries as to larval 
Ascidians, which seem to indicate a genetic affinity be- 
tween them and the Vertebrata, and which are now made 
familiar to all by Mr. Darwin’s “ Descent of Man.” 
This is the more remarkable, as at p. 666 the author 
speaks of the Amphioxus as in some respects resembling 
Ascidians, and being thus connected with the Mollusca. 
Another singular and conspicuous blot is the location of 
the Brachiopoda between the Lamellibranchiata and the 
Gasteropoda. 
When we come to the great Vertebrate division of the 
animal kingdom, we are again painfully impressed by 
defects and shortcomings, which sometimes must lead to 
downright error on the part of the unlearned reader. 
The Batrachians are lumped together with the true 
Reptiles in one class, and the student could hardly gather 
from Prof. Rymer Jones’s pages that the true affinities of 
the former are with fishes, while the latter are closely 
related to birds. In the general index we read “ Com- 
parison between Birds and Reptiles, p. 760, sec. 2,032.” 
We turn to the page and section indicated, expecting to 
find a succinct statement of the results arrived at by 
Profs. Huxley and Cope. In reality we find but a meagre 
statement of the obvious physiological contrasts between 
the two classes. 
Owen’s hypotheses as to the essential nature of the ver- 
tebrate endoskeleton and its several parts, are given with- 
out criticism or discrimination, as if they were views uni- 
versally received and recognised.- But there are positive 
errors which it is difficult to stigmatise too strongly, 
Thus, in spite of Prof. Huxley’s papers, it is gravely 
asserted of the terminal caudal vertebree of homocercal 
fishes, that they “are commonly blended together, and 
shortened by absorption, whilst both neural and hzemat 
arches remain with increased vertical extent, and indicate 
the number of the metamorphosed and obliterated cen- 
trums !” 
OF Prof. Owen’s hzemal cranial arches, it is said 
that his labours “have satisfactorily revealed their real 
nature, and established deyond a doubt (the italics are ours) 
the alliances which exist between the elaborate structures 
in question and the arches which exist under singular 
conditions appended to the vertebral segments of the 
trunk.” 
At the other end of the skeleton all the valuable re- 
