Vestiges Of The Natural History Of Creation Part 11

{93} "Some of the most considerable dislocations of the border of the coal fields of Coalbrookdale and Dudley happened after the deposition of a part of the new red sandstone; but it is certain that those of Somersetshire and Gloucestershire were completed before the date of that rock."--Philips.

{97} The immediate effects of the slow respiration of the reptilia are, a low temperature in their bodies, and a slow consumption of food. Requiring little oxygen, they could have existed in an atmosphere containing a less proportion of that gas to carbonic acid gas than what now obtains.

{99} The order to which frogs and toads belong.

{103} Dr. Buckland, quoting an article by Professor Hitchc.o.c.k, in the American Journal of Science and Arts, 1836.

{108a} Murchison's Silurian System, p. 583.

{108b} Buckland.

{110} In some instances, these fossils are found with the contents of the stomach faithfully preserved, and even with pieces of the external skin. The pellets ejected by them (coprolites) are found in vast numbers, each generally enclosed in a nodule of ironstone, and sometimes shewing remains of the fishes which had formed their food.

{114} De la Beche's Geological Researches, p. 344.

{127} Thick-skinned animals. This term has been given by Cuvier to an order in which the hog, elephant, horse, and rhinoceros are included.

{149} Intervals in the series were numerous in the department of the pachydermata; many of these gaps are now filled up from the extinct genera found in the tertiary formation.

{151} See paper by Professor Edward Forbes, read to the British a.s.sociation, 1839.

{159} Macculloch on the Attributes of the Deity, iii. 569.

{166} "A gla.s.s tube is to be bent into a syphon, and placed with the curve downwards, and in the bend is to be placed a small portion of mercury, not sufficient to close the connexion between the two legs; a solution of nitrate of silver is then to be introduced until it rises in both limbs of the tube. The precipitation of the mercury, in the form of an Arbor Dianae, will then take place, slowly, only when the syphon is placed in a plane perpendicular to the magnetic meridian; but if it be placed in a plane coinciding with the magnetic meridian, the action is rapid, and the crystallization particularly beautiful, taking place princ.i.p.ally in that branch of the syphon towards the north. If the syphon be placed in a plane perpendicular to the magnetic meridian, and a strong magnet brought near it, the precipitation will commence in a short time, and be most copious in the branch of the syphon nearest to the south pole of the magnet."

{169a} Fatty matter has also been formed in the laboratory. The process consisted in pa.s.sing a mixture of carbonic acid, pure hydrogen, and carburetted hydrogen, in the proportion of one measure of the first, twenty of the second, and ten of the third, through a red-hot tube.

{169b} Supplement to the Atomic Theory.

{170} Carpenter on Life; Todd's Cyclopaedia of Physiology.

{171} Carpenter's Report on the results obtained by the Microscope in the Study of Anatomy and Physiology, 1843.

{172} See Dr. Martin Barry on Fissiparous Generation; Jameson's Journal, Oct. 1843. Appearances precisely similar have been detected in the germs of the crustacea.

{175} Mr. Leonard Horner and Sir David Brewster, on a substance resembling sh.e.l.l.--Philosophical Transactions, 1836.

{179a} Dr. Allen Thomson, in the article Generation, in Todd's Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology.

{179b} The term aboriginal is here suggested, as more correct than spontaneous, the one hitherto generally used.

{182} Article "Zoophytes," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 7th edition.

{187} See a pamphlet circulated by Mr. Weekes, in 1842.

{195} Daubenton established the rule, that all the viviparous quadrupeds have seven vertebrae in the neck.

{201} Lord's Popular Physiology. It is to Tiedemann that we chiefly owe these curious observations; but ground was first broken in this branch of physiological science by Dr. John Hunter.

{204} When I formed this idea, I was not aware of one which seems faintly to foreshadow it--namely, Socrates's doctrine, afterwards dilated on by Plato, that "previous to the existence of the world, and beyond its present limits, there existed certain archetypes, the embodiment (if we may use such a word) of general ideas; and that these archetypes were models, in imitation of which all particular beings were created."

{208} The numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, &c. are formed by adding the successive terms of the series of natural numbers thus:

1=1 1+2=3 1+2+3=6 l+2+3+4=10, &c. They are called triangular numbers, because a number of points corresponding to any term can always be placed in the form of a triangle; for instance -

1 .

3 .

6 .

10

{215} Kirby and Spence.

{221} See an article by Dr. Weissenborn, in the New Series of "Magazine of Natural History," vol. i. p. 574.

{224} "It is a fact of the highest interest and moment that as the brain of every tribe of animals appears to pa.s.s, during its development, in succession through the types of all those below it, so the brain of man pa.s.ses through the types of those of every tribe in the creation. It represents, accordingly, before the second month of utero-gestation, that of an avertebrated animal; at the second month, that of an osseous fish; at the third, that of a turtle; at the fourth, that of a bird; at the fifth, that of one of the rodentia; at the sixth, that of one of the ruminantia; at the seventh, that of one of the digitigrada; at the eighth, that of one of the quadrumana; till at length, at the ninth, it compa.s.ses the brain of Man! It is hardly necessary to say, that all this is only an approximation to the truth; since neither is the brain of all osseous fishes, of all turtles, of all birds, nor of all the species of any one of the above order of mammals, by any means precisely the same, nor does the brain of the human foetus at any time precisely resemble, perhaps, that of any individual whatever among the lower animals. Nevertheless, it may be said to represent, at each of the above-mentioned periods, the aggregate, as it were, of the brains of each of the tribes stated; consisting as it does, about the second month, chiefly of the mesial parts of the cerebellum, the corpora quadrigemina, thalami optici, rudiments of the hemispheres of the cerebrum and corpora striata; and receiving in succession, at the third, the rudiments of the lobes of the cerebrum; at the fourth, those of the fornix, corpus callosum, and septum lucidum; at the fifth, the tubor annulare, and so forth; the posterior lobes of the cerebrum increasing from before to behind, so as to cover the thalami optici about the fourth month, the corpora quadrigemina about the sixth, and the cerebellum about the seventh. This, then, is another example of an increase in the complexity of an organ succeeding its centralization; as if Nature, having first piled up her materials in one spot, delighted afterwards to employ her abundance, not so much in enlarging old parts as in forming new ones upon the old foundations, and thus adding to the complexity of a fabric, the rudimental structure of which is in all animals equally simple."-- Fletcher's Rudiments of Physiology.

{226} [Gutenberg note: the table in the book is very wide. Since it won't fit within the normal Gutenberg margins, and cannot be reproduced typographically, the rows of the table have been broken out as follows.]

{229} Some poor people having taken up their abode in the cells under the fortifications of Lisle, the proportion of defective infants produced by them became so great, that it was deemed necessary to issue an order commanding these cells to be shut up.

{232} These affinities and a.n.a.logies are explained in the next chapter.

{239a} Corresponding to the articulata of Cuvier.

{239b} A new sub-kingdom, made out of part of the radiata of Cuvier.

{239c} This is a newly applied term, the reasons for which will be explained in the sequel.

{242} This is preferred to grallatorial, as more comprehensively descriptive. There is the same need for a subst.i.tute for rasorial, which is only applicable to birds.

{246} Distribution and Cla.s.sification of Animals, p. 248.

{255} Researches, 4th edition, i. 95.

{257} Prichard.

{266} Mr. Swainson's arguments about the entireness of the circle simiadae are only too rigid, for fossil geology has since added new genera to this group and the cebidae, and there may be still farther additions.

{270} See Wilson's American Ornithology; article, Fishing Crow.

{274} [Gutenberg note: in the diagram the triangles extending from the 1,2,3,4 and the a,b,c,d meet at the same point--the line from the 1,2,3,4 being at around 45 degrees and the line from the a,b,c,d being at around 60 degrees. It isn't possible to reproduce this using normal characters. Despite what the text says there is no line labelled 5 in the diagram.--DP]