34 DEWAR ON SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 



In form, this skull was lower and broader or flatter than 

 Phocoena or Delphis. The intermaxilla bones very broad, covering 

 the maxilla's almost to the end. Posterior to spouting holes 

 the nasal bones appeared higher than crest of maxilla's, which here 

 covered the os frontis. Anterior to spouting holes, the intermax- 

 illa's were very flat and concave. The teeth were all gone from the 

 upper jaw but in the lower jaws there were only fourteen left. 

 They were strong, conical, incurved and pointed, and of various 

 sizes, the largest being one inch long. From the state of upper 

 jaw it was impossible to say if the teeth had dropped out after 

 death, but in the lower jaws there were seven alveola cups, showing 

 where a tooth had been lost during life. Unlike the other genera, 

 Phocoena, Delphis, and Lagenorhyncus, whose teeth have no alveola 

 socket, their teeth seemed set in a strong but spongy alveola bone, 

 extending seven inches on either side of jaw, and wherever a tooth 

 had gone, there a shallow cup remained, as if during life, the tooth 

 had been gradually pushed out by a bony deposit filling up the 

 alveola process into a shallow cup. Thus counting the remaining 

 teeth with the cups we could say the lower jaw had ten teeth on one 

 side and eleven upon the other, which would give over forty for all. 

 The palate was very flat and no vomer showing. The commisure 

 of the lower jaw round, strong with no teeth inserted at its arch. 

 The pectoral fin was four feet long and eleven inches in its widest 

 part. In shape it was a very long oval with its long axis produced 

 to a narrow point and depressed downwards. 



Art. III. — Spontaneous Generation, or Predestinated 

 Generation. By Andrew Dewar. 



{Read April 12, 1875.) 



In giving a paper on the above subject, we are well aware that 

 we are treading on dangerous ground. The bare mention of the 

 title is enough to arouse bitterness and contention in many whose 

 minds have been trained in the strict theological schools of a past 

 day ; but, knowing well that we are addressing a Scientific Society 



