128 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Christie’s brickfield, in the carse land near the town of Stirling, and 
about 100 yards from the bed of the Eiver Forth. They were lying 
in the “blue slink,” from 13 to 14 feet below the present surface, 
and from 3 to 4 feet above the present high-water mark. 
The following conclusions were stated : — 
1. In both Man and the Cetacea cervical ribs are occasionally 
developed in connection with the 7th vertebra. 
2. In both the cervical ribs may remain free or be fused with the 
1st thoracic rib, so as to make it bicipital. 
3. In Man a similar bicipital form may be due to fusion of the 
shafts of the 1st and 2nd thoracic ribs with each other at their verte- 
bral ends, and it is probable that this may also occur in the Cetacea. 
4. In either of the forms of fusion specified in 2 and 3, the two 
limbs, into which the vertebral end is divided, lie in different trans- 
verse planes, and the bifurcation is due to the partial fusion of two 
morphologically distinct rib-elements. 
5. The presence of a cervical rib, or the bicipital form of the 1st 
rib, is only an individual peculiarity, and is not to be regarded as 
affording any evidence of either specific or generic difference. 
The paper will appear in extenso in the Journal of Anatomy and 
Physiology, April, 1883. 
2. Oscillations and Waves in an Adynamic Gyrostatic System. 
By Sir William Thomson. 
3. On GyrostaticSo By the Same. 
4. On the Dynamical Theory of Dispersion. By the Same. 
Professor Tait laid upon the table a series of Photographs of 
Astronomical Instruments made at the new works of the Geneva 
Society for the Manufacture of Scientific Instruments. These photo- 
graphs were sent by the Astronomer-Eoyal for Scotland. 
BUSINESS. 
The following candidates were balloted for, and declared duly 
elected Fellows of the Society: — Mr WiUiam Evans Hoyle, M.A., 
M.R.C.S. ; Mr James Duncan Matthews; Mr Janies Greig Smith, 
M.A., M.B. ; Mr John Archibald, M.B., C.M. ; Mr Robert Rowand 
Anderson ; Mr Andrew Gray. 
