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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



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The Spkuce Ikee House. 



"will be decades before we outgrow tbe 

 zoological age of Linne." But his 

 great work was undoubtedly reptilian 

 ■embryology — indeed his papers on the 

 gastrulation and embryonic membranes 

 of turtles have long become classic. 

 Here, for example, he first . gave the 

 correct interpretation of the primitive 

 streak, discovering the rudiment of 

 the yolk plug and enabled comparisons, 

 on the one hand, with the amphibian, 

 on the other, with avian and mam- 

 malian types. Here, also, he gave the 

 first satisfactory explanation of the 

 relation of the archenteric to the sub- 

 germinal cavity, and the peculiar 

 growth of the sero-amniotic canal, 

 which, by the way, one of his pupils 

 afterwards demonstrated in the chick. 

 It is in a manner the test of the big- 

 ness of Mitsukuri that with the keen 

 interest in his purely morphological 

 work he did not fear loss of dignity by 

 contributing to economic subjects. A 

 delightful little paper is his report on 

 Japanese oyster culture, quite after 

 the fashion of his old teacher, Pro- 

 fessor Brooks. 



THE SPRUCE TREE HOUSE OF 

 THE MESA VERDE NATIONAL 



PARK 

 Dr. J. W. Fewkes has performed a 

 useful service in exploring and re- 

 storing one of the great aboriginal 

 monuments of the country, and the 

 Bureau of Ethnology has now printed 

 a description of the ruin. The Spruce 

 Tree House and the Cliff Palace, the 

 largest of the ruins of the Mesa Verde 

 Park, Avere discovered by native cattle 

 herders, and were first adequately de- 

 scribed by Baron Gustav Nordenskiold 

 in 1893. The imposing ruin shown in 

 the illustrations extends 216 feet under 

 the over-hanging cliff. It contains 

 about 120 rooms and probably housed 

 some 350 people. 



The buildings are divided by an 

 alley into two sections, the northern 

 being the larger and the older. There 

 are in all eight subterranean rooms, 

 which were used for ceremonial pur- 

 poses and are known as kivas. Above 

 these are plazas used for dancing and 

 other ceremonies, and about the plazas 

 are the living and other rooms, some- 



