1876.] Mr Bettany, On the Primary Elements of the Skull. 3 



Photographs of amphitheatres at Capua and Pozzuoli (Puteoli) 

 were also exhibited for comparison and illustration, and after a few 

 questions and criticisms by the President, Mr Jackson, and others, 

 the meeting closed with a vote of thanks to Mr Parker. 



October 30, 1876. 



(ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING). 



Prof. C. C, Babington, F.R.S., Vice-president, in the chair. 



The Annual Election of Officers, and of Members of Council, 

 to fill the vacancies caused by retireijient or otherwise, took place. 



The following Communication was made to the Society by 

 Mr G. T. Bettany, B.A., On the Primary Elements of the Skull. 



This communication contains an account of some of the most 

 recent conclusions adopted by Prof. Parker, the distinguished 

 honorary member of this Society, to whom science owes so large 

 a proportion of our knowledge of the subject. These views will 

 be more fully detailed in a forthcoming work on The Morphology 

 of the Skull by Prof. Parker and myself. The question to be 

 considered this evening is not the segmentation of the skull or the 

 comparison of its segments with those of the body, but what parts 

 in it are axial and what appendicular, whether indeed the axis of 

 the body ceases in the middle of the base of the skull, and the rest 

 of it, containing the fore part of the brain, has to be walled in by 

 the help of other structures. The rapidity with which important 

 phases of development are passed through in higher vertebrates, 

 and the extreme minuteness of the structures, cause much difficulty 

 in arriving at the truth ; that remarkable event in early growth, 

 the mesocephalic fexure, is one of the most puzzling in itself and 

 in its consequences. Again, in all the principal types, we appear 

 to be brought face to face with the fact that every form which 

 survives at present has become in important respects highly 

 specialised in structure with regard to its conditions of life, even 

 though it may have many features which place it on the whole 

 low in the scale. Much apparent lowliness may also be caused by 

 the fact that in some cases degeneration of structure has afforded 

 a more complete adaptation to a particular kind of life : most 

 parasites illustrate this. The inference I wish to draw is that the 

 development of no one type is to be taken as an absolute guide to 

 principles. 



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