116 ESCHRICHT AND REINHARDT 



for each of these three classes, and, perhaps, the mode in which this attachment takes place 

 may be surmised from the analogous manner in which it occurs in other Cetaceans ; but we 

 should not, however, have been able to speak with certainty on this point, had we not had these 

 parts before us in their natural connection in the foetus preserved in spirit, and partially in the 

 twenty-two feet and one third long skeleton. According to the information obtained from these 

 sources, we may now give the following statements. 



All thirteen pairs of ribs of the Greenland whale have at least this in common in their manner 

 of attachment^ that each of them is connected with the distal end of the transverse process 

 of its particular vertebra, the first pair of ribs to the transverse processes of the first, the 

 thirteenth to those of the thirteenth dorsal vertebra. That point on the rib where this attachment 

 to the corresponding transverse process takes place must undoubtedly be considered as the 

 tubercle of the rib ihibereulum costæ) ; but at the first glance, at least, this tubercle seems to be 

 rather differently placed. In the three posterior pairs of ribs the knob-like enlargement of the 

 vertebral extremity of the bone serves itself as its tubercle ; but in the eight middle paii'S of ribs 

 the attachment to the extremity of the transverse processes is effected in the more or less sharp 

 angle from whence the inwardly-turned shaft issues, and in the two anterior pairs of ribs it 

 takes place close behind their uppermost obtuse end. 



Thus while we consider ourselves to be right in interpreting the places where all the ribs 

 are attached to the transverse processes as their tubercles, we must necessarily interpret, not only 

 the said shafts of the eight middle pairs of ribs, but also the rounded points of the vertebral 

 extremities of the two foremost pairs as necks of the ribs {collum costæ). 



It was especially the twenty-two feet and a third long skeleton that was serviceable 

 to us in accurately pointing out the tubercles, and so it still continues to be, after most of 

 the ribs have been separated from the vertebræ, because the connecting ligaments have been 

 preserved, and are still attached to the ribs in a dried state. By this we are taught that 

 they are not affixed to the external surface of the said angle, accordingly not to the one that is 

 visible in the woodcut above, but to the opposite corner, though at its very innermost edge, the 

 one that just touches the cotyloid cavity of the inferior surface of the transverse processes, when 

 these bones are in their natural position. Thus the neck will point in an almost entirely inward 

 direction, and we are much inclined to suppose that it reaches the inferior siuface of the preceding 

 vertebra, where the stumpy point of the neck may thus be attached hke a condyle, at least in the 

 most long-necked ribs, namely, the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth pairs. We even believe that 

 we have discovered a cavity in the very hindmost part of some of the bodies of the middle 

 dorsal vertebræ, in which such an articulation might, perhaps, have taken place ; but in our foetus 

 we have not found any certain confirmation of this supposition. For, strange enough, all the 

 ribs of this foetus, though now very soft, almost spongy, were already ossified, with the exception 

 of a very small piece of their most inferior extremity and of the entire shaft or costal neck just 

 mentioned, which still appears like the transverse processes of the vertebræ as a diaphanous, bluish 

 cartilage. As long as the very thick external membrane (perichondrium) of this cartilage has not 

 beeu removed, a removal that always causes some risk of breaking the cartUage, all the ribs 

 appear to be attached to the transverse processes by their uppermost extremities, and besides to 

 be only affixed to the preceding intervertebral cartilage by means of a thick cord. But when we 

 cut into this thick cord we discover that it is cartilaginous in its interior, though not in all cases, 

 and more especially not as far as the place of attachment itself in the cases of the short-necked 



