Miscellanies. 1C5 



healthy, and bearing full internal evidences of organic and functional 

 perfection ? 



To me the case appears mysteriously anomalous ; the calculus of 

 animal production ; the stalactites, and other petrifactions, have ob- 

 vious causes to be found in the filtration and deposition, from sur- 

 charged fluids ; or, chemical precipitates, under uniform and well 

 defined laws : but the case before us is referable, I apprehend, to no 

 definite or known law.* 



Remark. — The above communication has been delayed, because 

 the petrified eggs which, although, as it now appears, they arrived 

 safely and in season, found a hiding place where they were long 

 overlooked, and were supposed to be lost. 



Their appearance corresponds perfectly with the above descrip- 

 tion ; their shape is not unlike that of the Echinus ananchytes, for 

 which, in a hasty view, they might be mistaken ; their color is yel- 

 lowish white, structure perfectly lamellar ; when heated they emit 

 an animal odor ; dissolve rapidly, with brisk effervescence, in muri- 

 atic acid, but leave a considerable residuum, probably of phosphates 

 and animal matter. Since their re-discovery there has not been lime 

 for an exact analysis. — Ed. 



3. Vertebral Bone of a Mastodon. — In digging a canal for a man- 

 ufactory in the town of Berlin, parish of Britain, Connecticut, about 

 twelve miles S.W. of Hartford, the workmen found a vertebral bone 

 of a mastodon in a state of high preservation. 



The spinous process is 17 inches long; the extremes of the trans- 

 verse processes are 10 to 12 inches apart ; the bones which contain- 

 ed the spinal cord is 5^ inches in diameter, and nearly 3 inches 

 thick ; it is cup-shaped, or concavo-convex, with the convex portion 

 forward. The cavity for the spinal cord is 3i inches in height by 2^ 

 in breadth. 



The bone is of a dark chocolate color : it is not mineralized in the 

 least ; no portion of it is injured or missing, except a small part of 

 the terminating processes ; the spinal canal is smooth and polished, 

 as are the cavities for the articulation of the ribs : they appear to re- 

 tain their cartilage, which is very smooth to the touch, and from 



* Pearls are believed to have their origin in blighted ova, since the enqiiiiie*; rel- 

 ative to this subject by Sir E. Home, (see his Coinp. Anat. Vol. v. p. .'502 and Phil. 

 Trans. 1S26, part in. p. 339) l^Iay not the explanation of tlieir formation equally 

 apply to the present bodies ? — (C U. S.) 



