596 
should occur a yery striking example of inac- 
curate learning : 
“Hmbryology throws some suggestive light 
upon the radical difference of childhood from 
maturity. The human feetus roughly follows 
the disjointed line of development which marks 
the evolution of animal life. Up to fowr months 
before birth the organism is essentially an aquatic 
animal, provided with rudimentary gill slits and 
the developed nerves of equilibration characteristic 
of aquatic life. At a later stage it has a coat of 
hair, and a tail longer than its legs, with the 
necessary muscles for moving this organ. This 
class of singular phenomena constantly appear 
during the embryological period; they are nour- 
ished and growing rapidly for a time, as if the 
whole destiny of the organism were to become some 
one of the lower forms of animal life. Then'the 
purpose is more or less suddenly changed. 
New forms and new organs appear, displacing 
or absorbing the old, and the organism seems 
to obtain a new destiny, which in turn may 
wholly or partly disappear. Some of these 
forms do not wholly disappear, and physiolo- 
gists now enumerate in the adult human organism 
more than one hundred parts of the body which 
have no known function, and whose presence 
cannot be explained except upon the theory 
that they are remnants, or rudimentary organs, 
of some of these broken tendencies through 
which the organism has passed. Such is the 
pineal gland, which was declared by Descartes to 
be the seat of the soul, but isnow recognized as 
the remnant of the organ of vision as still found 
in lower reptiles. The semi-lunar fold at the 
internal angle of the eye is the remnant of the 
third eyelid of marsupials. The vermiform ap- 
pendage, which is such a menace to human life, 
is the remnant of an enormous organ in her- 
bivora. The ear muscles, which in few people 
are functional, are recognized as rudiments of 
muscles of much use to lower animals. In the 
earlier stages of the human fcetus the brain is 
made up of three parts, of which the hinder 
part is by far the longest, as in the case of 
lower animals. There is then no trace of the 
cerebral hemispheres which constitute so large a 
part of the adult brain, just as there is no trace 
in the lower orders. The mid-brain later shows 
the same enlargement for the centers of sight and 
SCIENCE. 
[N.S. Vou. VI. No. 146. 
hearing that these portions have in birds and cer- 
tain fishes. Still later the proportions are re- 
versed: the hind-brain dwindles away relatively, 
to become the slight enlargement of the spinal cord 
at the base of the brain known as the medulla ob- 
longata; the mid-brain shrivels, to become the 
small nodules known as the quadrigemina ; and the 
narrow neck connecting the fore-brain and the mid- 
brain swells,to become the huge cerebral hemispheres. 
Embryological growth is clearly not a harmonious: 
development. The line of growth is broken, pro- 
ceeding in one direction for a time, and then sud- 
denly turning off in a new direction, as if the 
organism were continually making mistakes and 
correcting them before it is too late. The path of 
growth is strewn with the remnants of these 
abandoned tendencies.’’ 
CHARLES S. MInor. 
THE ‘ENCHANTED MESA.’ 
To THE EDITOR OF SCIENCE: As little as he 
needs it, so little would I object that what. 
trifling credit may be involved should go to my 
great teacher and dearest friend. Quite un- 
thinkingly, however, I have mentioned the 
fact, in type, that I first published the Quéres 
tradition of the ‘Enchanted Mesa;’ and as. 
ScIENCE (September 17) refers to the legend as. 
discovered by Bandelier and ‘subsequently ob- 
tained’ by me, the pupil seems to be left in the 
position of trying to rob his master. 
Bandelier’s Final Report, Part II., p. 318, 
seems sufficiently conclusive, and accords with 
his fixed habit of giving credit, even to humble 
sources. 
I first published a skeleton of the legend in 
1885. It was years later before I could round 
out the last detail of the folk-story—when I 
had become genuinely a friend (by their count 
and my own) with nearly all the old principales 
of Acoma. One of them, a noble and wise old 
man, already tottering in his nineties, rode 
sixty miles horseback to pass three days with 
me in my own pueblo, in the month of his 
death. Both of us felt that it was good-bye; 
for I was already packing for the long South 
American journey with Bandelier, and the old 
man knew his own time was short. We talked 
of many things of the years that had drawn us 
together, and of Acoma, our common love; and 
