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We see, tlieii, that by the exclusive survival of the 12-inch foot, 
we have lost the basis of a decimal system of measures, and thus, 
complicated our land measure in a most troublesome manner. 
In this examination, then, we have traced the old English mile 
back through four centuries, and seen that it varied but little in 
different times, and as used by different persons. And, following 
the analogy of the old French mile (with which it seems to have 
been identical), we see that it was part of the decimal system of 
the fathom, chain, furlong, and mile, based upon the most usual 
mediseval foot of England. Whether this mile was introduced by 
the hlormans, or whether its basis had remained in England (like 
other measures) from Roman times, is still unsettled ; and this 
question, as well as the local variations of the mile, and the origin 
of the miles of Wales and Cheshire, must remain for future discus- 
sion, when other and more complete materials may be discovered. 
3. A Re-Statement of the Cell Theory, with Applications to 
the Morphology, Classification, and Physiology of Protists, 
Plants, and Animals. Together with an Hypothesis of 
Cell-Structure, and an Hypothesis of Contractility.* By 
Patrick Geddes. Plate IV. 
Position and Im,portance of the Cell Theory in Morphology . — 
Vast though is the literature of vegetable and animal morphology, 
it becomes more readily grasped than that perhaps of any other 
science, when we classify it in relation to the few great works which 
initiated and for ever mark the successive waves of advance. Thus 
o-f the early pre-niorphological or encyclopaedic stage, when materials 
were being little more than heaped together, the works of Pliny or 
Gesner may be taken as types, to which the other encyclopaedias of 
Natural History by Jonston, &c., furnish at first mere supplements. 
The Sy sterna Natures of Linnaeus closes the old and marks a new 
era, and initiates that systematic enumeration of the flora and fauna 
of the globe which has since made such vast progress. All subse- 
quent systematic literature, no matter how important, no matter how 
much exceeding in quantity of new forms, involves no essential, no 
qualitative advance : thus the greater part of the proceedings of such 
* Prelim. Rote in Zool. Anzeiger, No. 146, 1883. 
