May 1, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



355 



not yet been discovered, the phylogeny of the 

 orders of placental mammals was now undoubt- 

 ed 1}' completed in its main features. The 

 phylogeny of the clawed groups has been 

 traced back to a common ordinal form, the 

 Bunotheria, and that of the hoofed groups 

 to the contemporaneous order, C6ndylarthra ; 

 while at the same time the characters of the 

 feet of the Cond}iarthra agree with those of 

 clawed placental mammalia, and bind the 

 series together ; the anthropoid line may also 

 be traced directTy through the lemurs to the 

 Condylarthra. These views were fortified b} T 

 numerous examples. Mr. S. H. Scudder gave 

 a sketch of the geological development of the 

 orders of winged insects, in which he claimed 

 that no ordinal differentiation could be detected 

 in paleozoic insects, although all the existing 

 orders were fully developed hy the middle of 

 the mesozoic period : he therefore held that 

 we were to look to the triassic period for the 

 most interesting future discoveries in this field. 

 Dr. T. Gill exposed his latest views regarding 

 the orders of fishes, and introduced a specula- 

 tive paper, by Dr. Ryder, on the flukes of 

 whales, which he looked upon as the posteri- 

 orly transferred, hypertrophied, tegumentaiw 

 elements of the mammalian hind-legs, basing 

 his argument on embryological evidence, and 

 on the anterior transference of the front limbs 

 and girdle in certain mammalia. Dr. J. S. 

 Billings exhibited a series of composite photo- 

 graphs of skulls, and explained the method 

 pursued in taking them directly from the skull ; 

 as also a method of measuring the cubi ca- 

 pacity of crania, devised by Dr. Matthews. 

 This consisted briefly in the rapid use of water 

 instead of shot or seed, after rendering the 

 skull water-tight by closing all the small open- 

 ings with putty, spraying the interior with thin 

 varnish, and embedding the whole skull in 

 putt}*. Finally, Major Powell read a paper 

 on the organization of the tribe, and the differ- 

 entiation of kinship, distinguishing between 

 agnatic kinship, founded upon brother groups, 

 and enatic kinship, founded upon sister groups. 

 The next meeting of the academy will be 

 held in Albany, beginning Nov. 10. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



*** Correspondents are requested to be as brief as 'possible Th* 

 writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



Mr. Hampden's designation of Sir Isaac 



Newton. 



On p. 283 of Science (April 3) it is stated that " to 

 call Sir Isaac Newton 'a fanatical pantheist' is a 

 happy thought which would certainly not have oc- 

 curred to everybody." I trust I shall not incur the 

 risk of identification with the disciples of Hr. John 

 Hampden if I venture to express my conviction that 

 this gentleman does not vituperate Newton when he 

 applies to him a term at once appropriate and just. 

 Surely, if such were my opinion, I should be justified 

 in asserting that the scholium generate at the end of 

 the third book of the ' Principia ' reads like the drivel 

 of a cretin rather than a scientific conclusion. While 

 science itself forms a grand and sublime whole, — its 

 only rival and superior being pure reason and sense, — 

 it is nevertheless true that nothing can be more dis- 

 appointing than many of the biographies of physicists, 

 who, even in the most favorable instances, are but 

 little great men. In Locke's correspondence with his 

 nephew Sir Peter King, we perceive what a delicate 

 matter it was to have any thing to do with Newton 

 in connection with their precious mutual confidences 

 with respect to the mystical and prophetical parts of 

 the New Testament. Hitherto Sir Isaac's devotion — 

 I may add, fanatical devotion — to theology has never 

 been called in question. His laborious criticism of 

 Dr. Burnett's ' Sacred theory of the earth ' deserves 

 a place among other kindred examples of human 

 folly and irrational superstition, its object being to 

 prove that the surface of the earth afforded indubi- 

 table evidences of the truth of the Bible account of 

 creation. M. C. O'Bybne. 



Highlands, Macon county, N.C., 

 April 17. 



A second phalanx in the third digit of a 

 carinate-bird's wing. 



There is not a single adult carinate-bird known 

 bearing two phalanges at the third digit. Jeffries 

 ( Hroc. Bost. soc. nut. hist., xxi. 301-306) gives the 

 following four families of birds having two phalanges 

 in the first, three phalanges in the second, and one 

 phalanx in the third digit: the Palamedeae, Anseres. 

 Alectorides, and Pygopodes. The only living bird 

 which has two phalanges in the third digit is the 

 ostrich from Africa (Alix). According to Meckel 

 {Archiv. anat. phys., 1830, 233) and Nitsch (Osteogr. 

 beitr. naturg. vogel, Leipzig, 1811,90), the ostrich pos- 

 sesses only one phalanx in the third digit. The only 

 known bird having four phalanges in the third digit 

 isArchaeopteryx (t)ames)from the lithographic lime- 

 stone. 



It is evident that all birds at a former time had 

 four phalanges in the third digit; and it seemed very 

 probable to me that rudiments of at least one phalanx 

 more than in the adult ought to be found in embryos 

 of the above four families. This probability lias been 

 verified by the examination of an embryo of Anas 

 domestica L. (length of ulna 2.5 mm.), where I find a 

 rudiment of a second cartilaginous phalanx in the 

 third digit. 



I think it not improbable that the rudiment of a 

 third phalanx (if there is really a second one in the 

 third digit) will be found in embryos of the ostrich, 

 which 1 hope soon to examine. 



Dn. G. Bauk. 



Yale-college museum, New Haven-, 

 Conn., April 24. 



