582 Fossil Remains of Anoplotherium 



logical Society the vertebra, which is 7\ inches long, has a vertical 

 diameter of 3-8 inches ; whereas in the fossil species the vertebra, 

 which is 8 inches long, instead of having a vertical diameter exceed- 

 ing 4 inches (as it ought, if its breadth were proportional to its 

 length), has a vertical diameter of only 3-6 inches. This goes to 

 prove that in this fossil giraffe the neck was one -tenth more slender 

 in proportion to its length than the neck is in the existing species. 



The inferior surface of the body of the vertebra is more curved longi- 

 tudinally in the fossil than it is in the recent bone ; the height of the 

 arc in the former case being to the height in the latter as 3 is to 2. 



On the under surface of the fossil vertebra a very distinct longi- 

 tudinal ridge runs down the middle, and this ridge is wanting in 

 the recent bone ; but this difference, probably, is chiefly owing to 

 difference of age. 



In the fossil vertebra the upper articulating head is very con- 

 vex ; for with a transverse diameter of 1*4 inch it has a vertical 

 height of 1 inch ; laterally it is a good deal compressed. 



The posterior articulating surface, forms a perfectly circular cup, 

 two inches in diameter ; and this diameter, in the immature Nubian 

 giraffe, is one -tenth greater, although the vertebra is one- sixteenth 

 shorter. This affords a further proof of the comparative slender- 

 ness of neck in this fossil species. 



In regard to the apophyses, the inferior transverse processes 

 are sent off downwards and outwards from the lower part of the 

 anterior end, exactly as in the recent species, and they are deve- 

 loped to nearly the same amount of projection. There is, however, 

 this considerable difference, that whereas in the recent species they 

 do not run half-way down the body of the vertebra, in the fossil they 

 are decurrent along the whole of its length in well-marked laminar 

 ridges, which are confluent with the nearly obsolete ridges of the 

 upper transverse processes, the united mass near the posterior end 

 being dilated into two thick alseform expansions. 



In the fossil, as in the recent bone, the superior transverse pro- 

 cesses are seen only in a rudimentary state ; in the former, however 

 they run forwards across the body with less obliquity, and conse- 

 quently make the canals for the vertebrary arteries twice as long as 

 they are in the recent bone. In the fossil the orifices of these canals 

 divide the length of the vertebra into three nearly equal portions ; 



