724 
PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE MEGATHERIUM. 
Order Bimana. Genus Homo. 
Var. Caucasica, seu Indo-Europoea. 
In the skeleton of a Frenchman, from which the figures 1 and 2 of Plate XLIV. are 
taken, the rnetapophysis first appears as a prominence (m) from the fore-part of the 
diapophysis {d) of the tenth dorsal vertebra : it becomes a distinct and well-marked 
process (m) from the upper and fore-part of the diapophysis of tiie eleventh dorsal ver- 
tebra, where the rudiment of the anapophysis (a) may be discerned. In the twelfth 
the rnetapophysis has increased in size and advanced nearer to the prozygapophysis 
(z, 12, fig. 2), and the anapophysis (a), though small, becomes distinct on this ver- 
tebra. Both processes are reduced in size in the first lumbar vertebra, in which the 
metapophyses (m) have advanced to the outer side of the prozygapophyses (z) ; while 
the anapophyses have descended to the back part of the base of the diapophysis. 
An anapophysis (a) becomes well-developed behind the base of the diapopophysis of 
the fourth lumbar: the metapophyses are reduced to tuberosities in the last four 
lumbar vertebrse. 
In the skeleton of an Englishman, in the Museum of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, 
the metapophyses begin to be developed on the diapophyses of the tenth dorsal, are 
intermediate between the diapophyses and zygapophyses in the eleventh, are so placed 
in the twelfth as to overlap the posterior zygapophyses of the eleventh, and are large 
round tubercles upon the prozygapophyses of all the lumbars save the last. 
In the skeleton of an Englishman with six lumbar vertebrse, in the Hunterian Mu- 
seum, the rnetapophysis rises in common with the anapophysis, as a tubercle upon the 
diapophysis of the eleventh dorsal vertebra ; the met- and an-apophyses become sepa- 
rated and of greater length on the twelfth dorsal, and continue equally distinct and 
well-developed on the first lumbar, which, from the persistent mobility of one of its 
pleurapophyses, might be equally regarded as a thirteenth dorsal. The metapophyses, 
however, subside as usual to mere tuberosities on the second lumbar, but the an- 
apophysis continues to the fifth lumbar vertebra, in which it is most developed. It 
is obsolete on the last lumbar. 
In the skeleton of the Irish giant, in the same museum, the metapophyses become 
distinct processes on the eleventh dorsal, and are repeated on the twelfth dorsal and 
first lumbar vertebrse ; the anapophyses appear on the twelfth dorsal, and are repeated 
on the three first lumbar vertebrae^. 
* The common subsidence of the accessory processes on the last lumbar vertebra seems to have attracted 
the notice of Galen, who writes in his chapter ' De lumborum vertebris,’ — “ Et sane alia quaedam declivis in 
ipsis apophysis est ab insigni exortu nervi constituta, base quae interdum quidem inest omnibus, interdum vero 
in postremis aut exigua plane, aut prorsum nulla, sed superposita perpetuo ipsam habeat, quemadmodum et 
ultimae dorsi duae." — De Ossibus, Cap. x. Opera, fol. ed. by Renatus Chaeterius, Lutetiae Parisiorum, 1679, 
p. 18. The yu'oeessas declives here described by Galen in the last two dorsal and the upper lumbar vertebrae, 
would seem, from their defined direction, to be the ‘ anapophyses but the origin assigned to them — Trupd rriv 
€ K <\ n<jiv Tov vevpov — near the outlet for the nerve, does not exactly apply. Accordingly Vesalius, commenting 
on this passage, writes, — “ Ego hunc processum in humanis vertebris nunquam reperi.” And he adds, — “ In 
