52 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



fluoric and phosphoric acid, it appears well adapted, as it runs into the most com- 

 plicated patterns, and has the advantage of preserving its colour, from the absence 

 of all tendency to unite with sulphur or become affected by sulphui'etted hydrogen, 

 A lari^e amount of the increased activity in the manufacture referred to is due to 

 the exceeding beauty of its compound with copper, which is so like gold as scarcely 

 to be distinguishable from that metal, with the additional valuable property of 

 being nearly as hard as iron." 



' On the Syndactylous Condition of the Hand in Man and the Anthropoid Apes,' 

 by Mr. C.O.Blake — The author said, "I call the attention of the Section to a 

 curious abnormity which is presented by the integument of a specimen of old male 

 gorilla which was brought from the Gaboon by Mr. W. Winwood Reade, and pre- 

 sented by that gentleman to the Museum of the Anthropological Society of Lon- 

 don. The specimens of gorilla which have been the subjects of the elaborate and 

 complete Memoirs which have appeared from the pens of MM. Duvemoz and Isi- 

 dore Geoffrey St. Hilaire, in the Archives of the Paris Museum (vols. viii. and x.) 

 and by Prof. Owen in various parts of the Zoological Transactions, have, with 

 other authors, all coincided in the statement of a fact, true as regard| the speci- 

 mens with which they were acquainted, which probably represent the majority of 

 specimens of gorilla which have been examined in Europe. This statement, re. 

 duced to a general proposition, was that the integument of the skin of the fingers 

 was more or less connected across the first digital phalanx in such a manner that 

 the first joints were firmly connected together by skin, sometimes as far as the 

 distal extremity of the first phalanx, sometimes merely to the middle of this 

 phalanx. In no specimen of gorilla, of the description of which I am yet cogni- 

 zant, are the digits of the anterior extremity free to the same extent as in man, in 

 which the distal extremities of the metacarpals mark the termination of the amount 

 of syndactylity of the hand. In the specimen of gorilla to which allusion is made 

 in this short note, the digits of the fingers present a different condition of connec- 

 tion from the typical specimens described by zoologists. The second (index), 

 third (medius), and fourth (annulus) digits are free beyond the distal end of the 

 metacarpals as in the human subject ; the fifth digit (minimus) is also in a less de- 

 gree attached to the annulus than in the specimens of gorilla contained in various 

 public museums. We have thus a specimen of gorilla in which the digits of the 

 hand are almost as tree as in the hand of the lower races of mankind. Careful ex- 

 amination by a lens of the integument before the preparation of the specimen by 

 Mr. Leadbeater, who first called my attention to this abnormity, demonstrates the 

 fact that the epidermis covers the cutis on the inner sides of the interdigital spa- 

 ces of the first phalanges of this specimen. The consistency of this epidermis 

 merely differs in degree from that of the homologous structure in the foot and 

 other parts of the body. It would be interesting to compare such a curious ab- 

 normity of the integument with the similar abnormities which exist in the human 

 species. The human fingers are most frequently connected together by syndactyli, 

 and remain during life in that state of arrested development (as regards the in- 

 tegument) which is typified by the permanent stage of the development of the 

 goriUa. On the other hand, I have never yet met, either in the chimpanzee or 

 orang-utan, with a similar case of freedom of digits to that here described. We 

 must, however, recollect that the number of specimens of chimpanzee and orang- 



