270 MEIGS' OBSERVATIONS ON THE REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS, 



organ ninety-nine inches. Then at a depth of 800 fathoms the sea pressure per 

 square inch, or that on the os uteri, is equal to 2055 pounds, while the sea pressure 

 on the remaining 99 inches equals 203,445 pounds. 



So great a reinforcement to the facultas expultrix would inevitably overcome the 

 resistance of a single or simple os uteri. Hence, to obviate a great risk of losing the 

 genera by the destruction of the embryons, the facultas retentrix has been fortified 

 and made secure by an apparatus not in use in any terrestial mammal. I should 

 think no man need look for a more absolute demonstration of a plan or plans of 

 creation. 



But I have to remark that the exterior surface of the chorion in this mammal is 

 converted into a placenta, in which respect it resembles the placenta of the 

 pachyderms, as the mare and hog, in which the whole exterior surface of the chorion 

 becomes placenta ; while in the carnivora it is zoniform, and in ruminants consists of 

 numerous placentules. 



In this cetacean, not only is the exterior surface of the chorion become a fleshy and 

 vascular process, but the surface is immensely multiplied in order greatly to increase 

 the surface of contact and the chances of aeration. For some of the cetacea make 

 plunges that last for thirty minutes, before they return to the surface to breathe. 

 "The average stay under water," says Mr. Scoresby, "of a wounded whale, which 

 steadily descends after being struck, according to the most usual conduct of the 

 animal, is about thirty minutes ; but in shallow water, I have been informed, it has 

 been sometimes known to remain an hour and a half at the bottom after being struck, 

 and yet has returned to the surface alive." — Op. cit. p. 247. 



Now, inasmuch as the foetal cetacean depends for its aeration upon the branchial 

 offices of its placenta, does it not appear that such protracted absence from the surface 

 as thirty minutes, would suffice nearly to asphyxiate the dam, and certainly, to destroy 

 the fruit of the womb, but for the vast multiplication of the aerating surface that I 

 have described and figured in the present specimens? With so extensive a 

 superficies of aerating or oxygenating branchia or placenta, the foetus might survive 

 after the most protracted absence from the surface that the dam might be induced to 

 suffer. Another proof of the wisdom and foreknowledge and plan of the Author of 

 nature. 



To know that plan ; to look through nature, up to nature's God, ought to be the 

 highest aim of the naturalist and the physiologist. 



It might be interesting to the members to observe the mode of connection between 

 the chorion or placenta and the womb. In separating these surfaces by the avulsion 

 of the chorion, it is manifest that no vascular tractus is broken ; and I cannot 



