fl
- I
The trapezoid is a smaller bone llian the preceding and has like the pisiform bone ils great diamotor
from side to side. It presents an articular edge to Llie unciformis.
The unciform bone is of the same size and shape as the last and therefore needs no further notice.
T he Meta-carpus. Tlic nicta-carpus consists of five bones, which have a long axis from above (o
below, an upper and an inferior articular extremity and a narrow body.
T he P iialaxoes. These arc much like the meta-carpal bones in form, and need no further comment
save tliat tlicir superior or meta-carpal extremity is lai^or than the inferior one. Tlicy amount to twenty-
seven and arc thus situated ;
The first and radial phalang-al row ........................... 6.
The second.... ................................................................... 7.
The third......................................................................... 7.
The fourth ...................................................................... C.
Tlie fifth and u ln a r ........................................................ 1.
All the bones of tlio paddle had inter-articular cartilages, they diminish in size towards tlicir
cxlvemity and grow wider apart.
TH E PO ST ER IO R E X T R EM IT IE S .
Tiiu posterior extremities, whicli me longer than tlic anterior, arc composed of the femur, leg and paddle.
T he F emur. Tlie Femur {j) as a matter of course is somewhat like the humerus, but is longer,
rounder and more slender. Its head wliich articulates in the cotyloid cavity is as mncli marked witli
fossæ as that of the humerus and has like it a vim for the capsular ligament. The body is rounded
and smooth and spreads into the fattened surface of tlie inferior extremity of this bone. It is convex
below and marked with striæ from above to without and bcneatli. Of the two external edges, the
posterior one is tlic most concavely curved.
Connexion. Superiorly with the ilii, ischii and pubes ; inferiorly with the fibula and tibia.
Tlie femur drawn in plate twenty-six was common with the other bones therc to one individual.
T he Leg. The fibula and tibia constitute this division. Tho fibula (i) the most external bone of the
two has an upper anterior and a posterior flattened surface, a superior and an inferior articulatory
extremity, an internal convex and rounded boundary and an internal semi-lunated edge.
Connexion. Above with the humerus and below with tiie middle bone of the tarsus.
The tibia (I) has, like the fibula, a scmi-lunar border ; it articulate with the femur and below witli a
vast inter-articular cartilaginous mass between it and the meta-tarsal bones.
THE POSTERIOR PADDLE.
The T arsus. Three bones constitute the tarsus—an external articular one, a median cuneiform bone
larger tlian the preceding, and a tliiid situated between them inferiorly. As may have been expected,
fliese three bones have their onierior and posterior su r f aces flattened and smootli like those of the carpus.
T he Meta-tarsus. The five bones which compose the metfi-tarsus have an upper and an inferior
articular surface, a narrow body and a long axis from above to below.
T he Phalanges. The phalangal bones'approximate in shape so much to those of the anterior
paddle (as do indeed all the other bones of this division,) that we have only left us to mention their number
and position, in order to terminate our anatomical description of tlic Plesiosaurus Triatarsostinus.
The first and fibular row contains ................ 5.
The second......................................................... 7.
Tho th ird ........................................................... 7,
The fourth........ ........................................... e.
The fifth or tibia) row..................................... 2,
.0 O N C L U S I O N.
'■ Of one departed world
■' I see tlie mighty shadow,"
" The revolution and the wrath of Time."
Iclitiiyosauvi and Plesiosauri filled up the measure of their years long ere Eden was jilantcd and
llie dominion of tlie man made of the “ red earth" acknowledged, over “ fish of the sea, fowl of the air,
and cattle, and over all the earth and upon every creeping thing.”
Tlieirs was tlic pre-Adamite—the just emerged from chaos—planet, through periods known only to
God-Almiglity: theirs an eltrich-world uninhabitate, sunless and moonless, and soared in tlie angry
light of supernal firc;—theirs a fierce anark thing scorched to a horrible shadow: and they were the
horrible chimeras—inexplicable and wonderful incarnations of tlie myriad generations of tho after times__
which denned timt dreadful eartii—alone. The sometime terran, sometime oceanic ptérodactyles—tliose
more than vampire monsters, which had solitary occupation of the wastes of sand when black night
fell down upon tlicm—were an after-thought : they followed a t tlic heels of the former, and when they did
come to scare Solitude at the sound of wing and tho fish of the sea 'twas the herding together of furies
that hunted in a leash.
How did they gloat over the million million Medusa;—the boneless zooplutes of an element wide as
the world, and all tlieir own : innumerable swarmed they, like Milton’s cloud of locust angels, and liic
sauri amongst them as Satan, Molock and Abaddon.
But the adamantine grapples of Time came upon them: he watched the last struggle of the last
horrible persons of their friglitful race and fore-wont, in consideration of the future lord of the creation
of which they were the primal carnivora, the execution of the bond that all tho living are bound by—
“ dust to dust."
Wc have explored the sepulchres of tliesc wondrous tribes; behold! the iast mummian sliroud yields,
and wo find tlic heads, bodies, tails and uncouth extremities of a thousand dissimilar creatures, conjoined
together as though Nature were but of apprcntice-hand when she ordained the genera—the confused
and undreamed of families.
Over these vestiges of Ichthyos and Plesion-sami—the flcshless bones of the primitive race of
prcynig- monsters; over tlie wide jaws that first committed murder in obedience to the stern laws of
Necessity—wc love to dwell. Such countless liosts of associations arc connected with tliese gonc-by
tilings—so much of the sublime and mystic, of the eternal and inspiring that we invoke fate to continue
them ours for o v e r:-th ey are sensations—operations—that concentrate infmity ami identifies it, a
something that the lumian understanding can grasp bodily and be satisfied thcrewitli, like the opium-
eater, and his drug, for awhile.