SCIENCE. 



partition of bone between the two fossae is also thicker. 



The elimination of this " degraded affinity " is but one 

 instance of the general evolution that has shaped or 

 moulded all of the innumerable forms of animal and 

 vegetable life. The vertebral column is always so badly 

 decayed that anatomical comparison is impossible. The 

 parts that " resist decay " indicate great physical per- 

 fection and strength. The Sacrum presents different 

 forms in respect to curvature. Sometimes it is very 

 slight, while in other specimens it is considerable. This 

 curvature of the Sacrum is a more constant sexual char- 

 acteristic in mound-builder skeletons than in the Cau- 

 casian or the African races, but I have not examined 

 specimens enough to tabulate the difference. The only 

 constant sexual characteristic of the Sacrum among all 

 races of men is its greater breadth in the female, and this 

 characteristic is well developed in the mound-builder 

 skeletons. Comparing portions of almost every one of 

 the larger bones of the mound-builder skeletons with 

 several Caucasian and one Negro, and two Indian skele- 

 tons, it is certain that the primitive people of the Rock 

 River Valley were strong, broad-shouldered, muscular 

 men, with broad, round faces, and low receding fore- 

 heads. Exostosis, or foreign growth of bone, has been 

 found. One, I remember, was found in one of the 

 mounds near Sterling, Illinois. The foreign growth of 

 bone in this specimen was stratified — deposited on the 

 surface of the bone, in thin layers, like the layers in 

 stalagmite. Bones exhumed from a mound on the west 

 bank of Rock River, near Como, were very brittle, of a 

 light and beautiful purplish color, when recently broken, 

 and contained no animal matter. They resemble, in every 

 respect, the bones exhumed from the church-yard of Ste. 

 Genevieve, Paris, after a burial of over seven hundred 

 years. — (Orfila Exhumations juridiques, Vol. I., p. 350.) 



WHITE CORPUSCLES OF THE BLOOD. 



The London Lancet draws attention to an interesting 

 memoir on the White Corpuscles of the Blood, which 

 appears in the part just issued of the Archives de 

 Physiologic in which M. Renaut describes the different 

 forms presented by the white corpuscles in different ani- 

 mals. In the river crayfish, for example, besides the 

 ordinary lymph-corpuscles, there are many larger bodies 

 with well defined nuclei, the protoplasm of which con- 

 tains brge highly refracting granules, resembling in 

 many respects the vitelline granules of the frog and 

 other batrachia. These corpuscles have a sharply limited 

 but thin exoplastic pellicle; and if a drop of such lymph 

 be allowed to fall into a drop of a one per cent, solution 

 of osmic acid, the white corpuscles are instantly fixed, 

 with their pseudopodia or protoplasmic processes ex- 

 tended ; and these processes can then be seen to perfo- 

 rate the thin membrane, now blackened with the acid. 

 There are thus two kinds of white corpuscles in the de- 

 capod Crustacea — the lymphoid corpuscles and the amoe- 

 boid corpuscles. Do similar differences exist in the 

 blood of vertebrata? In reply to this, M. Renaut states 

 that in the blood of all the vertebrata, from the cyclos- 

 tome to the saurians, the white corpuscles are of two 

 kinds ; one, the ordinary white corpuscle, composed of 

 hyaline protoplasm, presenting many short projecting 

 points, with a nucleus undergoing gemmation and send- 

 ing forth branched pseudopodia when placed under favor- 

 able conditions ; the other containing numerous brilliant 

 granules embedded in the protoplasm and surrounding 

 the nucleus. These resemble the second form of cor- 

 pucle described above as existing in the lymph of the 

 river crayfish, but differ from them in having no outer 

 limiting layer of condensed protoplasm, or exoplasm, as 

 Haeckel has named it. The application of osmic acid 

 shows that they may be subdivided into two other forms : 

 one closely analogous to cells undergoing transformation 



into fat-cells, which present numerous granules, and 

 stain black with osmic acid, and another set which con- 

 tains granules that are not fatty, but which stain, red 

 with eosine. The best mode of demonstrating the ex- 

 istenc; of these three forms is to fix the blood in the 

 rete mirabile of the capillary of the choroid in the pos- 

 terior segment of the eye of a frog, by removing the 

 anterior segment and exposing it to the vapor of osmic 

 acid. At the expiration of twelve hours the eye is re- 

 moved from the vapor, washed, the chorio-capiilaris de- 

 tached from the retina, and spread on glass ; it is after- 

 wards colored with, and mounted in, haematoxylate of 

 eosine. The corpuscles may then be studied, and the 

 three forms of ordinary, granular, and fatty corpuscles can 

 be easily distinguished. M. Renaut finds that the white 

 corpuscles of mammals generally, and of man in a state 

 of health, all closely resemble each other, and are of the 

 ordinary kind ; but in disease, as in leucocythasmia, the 

 white corpuscles are not only greatly increased in num- 

 ber, but vary considerably in size. Moreover, they are 

 round, and present no pseudopodia. They are hyaline, 

 and have a smooth, well defined limiting membrane, and 

 some of them have nuclei which have undergone fission, 

 just as in a cell that is about to segment. Hence, he is 

 of the opinion that the white corpuscles multiply and 

 increase in number whilst floating in the blood ; other 

 corpuscles may be observed, which are charged with 

 granules of some proteid substance, resembling vitelline 

 granules, or small masses of haemoglobin ; and, lastly, 

 there are still other cells, which are charged with fat. 

 M. Renaut has made some observations on the develop- 

 ment of the red corpuscles of the lamprey, and gives the 

 following succession of forms : — White corpuscle with 

 nucleus proliferating, and protoplasm, not limited by an 

 exoplasmic layer ; corpuscle with nucleus proliferating, 

 the protoplasm forming an uncolored disc, limited by an 

 exoplasm ; corpuscle with proliferating nucleus, protop- 

 lasm limited by an exoplasm, and forming a disc, more 

 'or less charged with haemoglobin ; red corpuscle with 

 proliferating nucleus ; and, finally, circular red corpuscle, 

 with rounded nucleus. 



MICROSCOPY. 



It has been decided by the Executive Committee of the 

 American Society of Microscopists to convene the next 

 annual meeting of the Society at Elmira, N. Y., August 

 17, 1882, at 10 A.M. It is thought that there will be 

 papers and discussions enough at Elmira to occupy us 

 four days ; thus, by adjourning Friday evening, August 20, 

 or Saturday noon, August 21, there will be ample time — 

 for those who wish to do so — to reach Montreal in time 

 for the meeting of the A. A. A. of Science on Tuesday, 

 August 24. 



At the Columbus meeting Mr. E. H. Griffith, of Fair- 

 port, N. Y., a member of Executive Committee of this 

 Society, renewed his generous offer of a prize of a Bausch 

 & Lomb half-inch objection of 98 air angle (about 0.76 

 numerical aperture), to be awarded as follows : 



" The prize shall be assigned to the author of the best 

 paper on the adulteration of some important article of 

 food or medicine. The paper shall be accompanied by 

 permanently mounted slides, illustrating the various points 

 under discussion ; all papers and slides to become the 

 property of the Society. The papers and accompanying 

 studies to be in the possession of the President on the 

 first day of the next annual meeting. He shall appoint a 

 committee of three to examine the same, and report the 

 name of the successful candidate before the close of the 

 meeting. The names of the competitors shall not be 

 made known to any member of the committee until after 

 the award is made. The award shall not be made unless 

 there shall be more than one competitor." 



In order to carry out Mr. Griffith's instructions the fol- 

 lowing rules are established ; 



