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IX. On the Nature of the intervertebral Substance in Fish and 
Quadrupeds. By Everard Home, Esq. F. R. S. 
Read February 23, 1809. 
In examining the internal structure of a Squalus maximus of 
Linnaeus, that lately came under my observation, a description 
of which will be the subject of a future paper, I met with a 
peculiarity in the intervertebral substance of the spine not 
hitherto made known to the public. 
The fish is thirty feet six inches long, the diameter of the 
larger vertebrae near the head, seven inches. The interver- 
tebral substance was cut into by Mr. Clift four days after the 
fish was brought on shore, and a limpid fluid rushed out with 
so much velocity, that it rose to the height of four feet. 
At the end of twelve days, I had an opportunity of exa- 
mining a portion of the spine, the intervertebral joints of which 
were preserved entire ; upon sawing through two of the ver- 
tebras, a fluid was met with, of the consistence of liquid jelly 
with clots of different sizes floating in it, so that in eight days a 
considerable tendency to coagulation had taken place, although 
the fluid was entirely excluded from the external air. 
The form of the cavity thus exposed by a longitudinal sec- 
tion being made of it, is nearly spherical, capable of contain- 
ing three pints of liquid, the lateral parts are ligamentous and 
elastic, uniting together the edges of the concave surfaces of 
mdcccix. A a 
