407 
of Edinburgh, Session 1870-71. 
the stream to its own channel — and if, from whatever cause, there 
came floods which would do in proportion for the enlarged Spey 
what the floods of 1829 did for the Drumlochan Burn, it does not 
appear as if the solution of the problem as to the formation of 
these high terraces should be difficult. It is in this direction that 
the solution is to be sought. 
Monday , 3 d April 1871 . 
Professor KELLAND in the Chair. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. On the Gravid Uterus and the Arrangement of the Foetal 
Membranes in the Cetacea. By Professor Turner. 
(Abstract.) 
In this memoir the author described the dissection of the gravid 
uterus of an Orca gladiator, for which he was indebted to Mr James 
Gatherer of Lerwick. The paper contained an account of the 
uterus and appendages, the foetal membranes, the position and 
general form of the foetus, and a comparison of the placentation 
with that of other mammals possessing the diffused form of pla- 
centa. The structure of the uterine mucous membrane, its sub- 
division into a gland layer and a crypt layer, the relations of the 
glands to the crypts, their structure, the arrangement of their blood- 
vessels, and the much greater vascularity of the crypts than of the 
glands, were especially described. The chorion, though with diffused 
villi, possessed not only a small non-villous part at each pole, but a 
third larger bare spot opposite the os uteri internum; the non-villous 
spots corresponded, therefore, to the three uterine orifices. The 
arrangement and structure of the villi, the relations of the vessels 
to them and to the chorion generally were described ; the plexus 
of capillaries within the villi became continuous with a network, 
termed sub-chorionic, situated immediately beneath the intervillous 
part of the chorion, from this latter plexus the rootlets of the umbi- 
lical vein arose. The intra-villous capillary plexus lay in relation 
to the system of capillaries situated in the walls of the uterine 
