292 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. IX. 
In 1847 Owen devoted much time to the 
prepamtion of his work ‘ On the Archetype 
and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, 
which came out in the following year. In the 
month of January Charles Darwin was a fre- 
quent visitor ; sometimes appearing at an early 
hour. ‘ On January 7,’ Mrs. Owen writes, 
‘ Mr. Darwin was here very early, before 
breakfast. He and R. had a long discussion on 
the subject of R.’s views on osteology and the 
archetype. After breakfast R. brought out his 
“ Broadsheet of Osteology.” Mr. Darwin quite 
saw the force of that.’ 
This ‘ Broadsheet of Osteology’ was a list or 
table which Owen had drawn up of all the scientific 
terms used by the most important English and 
foreign naturalists when describing the various 
bones of the vertebrate animals. The great 
difficulty in the way of Owen’s scientific writings 
being generally read was the fact that, although 
they often abounded in picturesque descriptions, 
and certainly in rich and instructive revelations, 
yet the frequency with which long compound 
Latin and Greek words were used, quite unfitted 
them to compete with more popular expositions- 
And yet he, in reality, simplified and determined 
to a great extent the language of comparative 
anatomy. Often when preceding naturalists had 
used different names in describing the same bonCi 
Owen avoided the confusion to which this gave 
