ON THE, VERTEBRATE SKELETON. 247 



be deduced from those of the vertebral column, and thence receive an ex- 

 planation of their forms and functions ? " He states that the idea of the 

 three facial vertebrae occurred to him in the year 1790, prior to which time 

 he says " die drei hintersten erkennt ich bald." The idea is developed in his 

 essay" as follows: — "The skull of mammalia is composed of six vertebrae; 

 three for the hinder division inclosing the cerebral treasure ; three composing 

 the fore part which opens in presence of the exterior world, which it seizes 

 and introduces. 



" The first three vertebrae are admitted (he alludes to Oken and Spix) : 

 they are, — 



" The occipital. 

 " The posterior sphenoid. 

 " The anterior sphenoid. 



" The three others are not yet admitted ; they are, — 

 " The palatine bone. 

 " The upper maxillary. 

 " The intermaxillary. 



" If some of the eminent men who ardently cultivate this subject should 

 feel interested by this simple enunciation of the problem, and would illus- 

 trate it by some figures indicating by signs and ciphers the mutual relations 

 and secret affinities of the bones, its publication would strongly draw the 

 thinking mind in that direction, and we may, perhaps, one day, ourselves 

 give some notes on the mode of considering and treating these questions." 



Professor Carus of Dresden has best responded to this appeal of his im- 

 mortal countryman : but it must be admitted that the detailed and complex 

 exposition of the theory of the six vertebrae and intervertebrae, of which the 

 general results are given in Table III., have yielded to anatomical science a 

 result which is hardly equivalent to the zeal and pains manifested in the at- 

 tempt, or to the artistic merit of the illustrations, published by the accom- 

 plished author of the ' Urtheilen des Knochen und Schalengeriistes ' (fol. 

 1828). 



Geoffroy St. Hilaire deems the skeleton of the head to be composed of 

 seven vertebrae ; and he has the merit of having more steadily sought the 

 homologies of the inferior arches of the cranial vertebrae than his predeces- 

 sors, who seem not to have sufficiently appreciated the essential character of 

 these portions of the primary segments of the vertebrate endo- skeleton. 

 Nevertheless it must be admitted that Cuvier has made good the grounds of 

 his rejection of Geoffroy's theory, as one based less on observation than on 

 purely a priori views, according to which the bones of the skull, real or 

 imaginary, are arranged into seven vertebrae, composed of nine pieces each *. 

 The cranio-vertebral system of GeofFroy is liable to the further objection, 

 that he has combined, as in the case of his typical vertebra from the tail of 

 the flounder, parts of the exo-skeleton (e.g. the suborbitals) with parts of 

 the endo-skeleton to which alone the vertebral theory is applicable. 



In the fasciculi of the magnificent ' Osteographie ' with which Professor de 

 Blainville has enriched his science, the descriptions follow the plan of the 

 classification of the bones of the skeleton propounded in the above-cited Me- 

 moirs in the ' Bulletin des Sciences ' for 1816 and 1817- In the Prospectus of 

 the ' Osteographie', M. de Blainville briefly refers to the great questions of 

 comparative anatomy, which the German organologists have comprehended 

 under the name of ' Signification of the Skeleton,' in allusion only to the 

 " gross errors and opinions almost extravagant, of some of the persons who 

 have occupied themselves with these questions:" whilst he reprobates, on the 

 * Cuvier, Histoire des Poissons, 4to, t. i. p. 230. 



