[650] Cf. Sir Thomas Browne, in The Garden of Cyrus: “But why ofttimes one side of the leaf is unequall unto the other, as in Hazell and Oaks, why on either side the master vein the lesser and derivative channels stand not directly opposite, nor at equall angles, respectively unto the adverse side, but those of one side do often exceed the other, as the Wallnut and many more, deserves another enquiry.”
[651] Where gourds are common, the glass-blower is still apt to take them for a prototype, as the prehistoric potter also did. For instance, a tall, annulated Florence oil-flask is an exact but no longer a conscious imitation of a gourd which has been converted into a bottle in the manner described.
[652] Cf. Elsie Venner, chap. ii.
[653] This significance is particularly remarkable in connection with the development of speed, for the metacarpal region is the seat of very important leverage in the propulsion of the body. In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, there stand side by side the skeleton of an immense carthorse (celebrated for having drawn all the stones of the Bell Rock Lighthouse to the shore), and a beautiful skeleton of a racehorse, which (though the fact is disputed) there is good reason to believe is the actual skeleton of Eclipse. When I was a boy my grandfather used to point out to me that the cannon-bone of the little racer is not only relatively, but actually, longer than that of the great Clydesdale.
[654] Cf. Vitruvius, III, 1.
[655] Les quatres livres d’Albert Dürer de la proportion des parties et pourtraicts des corps humains, Arnheim, 1613, folio (and earlier editions). Cf. also Lavater, Essays on Physiognomy, III, p. 271, 1799.
[656] It was these very drawings of Dürer’s that gave to Peter Camper his notion of the “facial angle.” Camper’s method of comparison was the very same as ours, save that he only drew the axes, without filling in the network, of his coordinate system; he saw clearly the essential fact, that the skull varies as a whole, and that the “facial angle” is the index to a general deformation. “The great object was to shew that natural differences might be reduced to rules, of which the direction of the facial line forms the norma or canon; and that these directions and inclinations are always accompanied by correspondent form, size and position of the other parts of the cranium,” etc.; from Dr T. Cogan’s preface to Camper’s work On the Connexion between the Science of Anatomy and the Arts of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture (1768?), quoted in Dr R. Hamilton’s Memoir of Camper, in Lives of Eminent Naturalists (Nat. Libr.), Edin. 1840.
[657] The co-ordinate system of Fig. [382] is somewhat different from that which I drew and published in my former paper. It is not unlikely that further investigation will further simplify the comparison, and shew it to involve a still more symmetrical system.
[658] Dinosaurs of North America, pl. LXXXI, etc. 1896.
[659] Mem. Amer. Mus. of Nat. Hist. I, III, 1898.