Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1876-09-27
PROFESSOR HUXLEY.
Fossil MarVels - Horses With
Fingers and TOss DiscOV-
cred In America.
The Last Toe Waning
New York Herald. 2sd.l

New York Herald, 3d.
Long before the time last night
announced for the commencement
of Professor Huxley's third and
last lecture in New York CHECKER
ing Hall was crowded with a singu-
larly composite audience. The
phalanx Of eager thinkers who
were noticed at the two previous
lectures were there, as a matter OF
course but the number of young
ladies was indefinitely greater than
on either of the previous occasions.
The danger of having for the next
ten days to reply negatively at the
breakfast or dinner table to the
query as to whether or not they
had heard Huxley, may have had
something to do with this un-
wonted influx Of fair and youthful
inquirers. One could not, how
ever, help being amused at the con-
trast between this section of the
audience and the intellectual menu
which confronted them from the
gigantic frame on the platform. II
was literally nothing but horse.
Horse, from the recent equus, as
science tenderly dubs him (who,
even while the learned lecturer was
descanting on his wondrous beauty
and manifold excellences, was do
ing NOCTURNAL duty in the Broad
way stages for the recent homo),
through his illustriQus ancestors,
the protohippus, the miohippps and
the meSohippus, back to the awful
form of him who mysteriously
moved over the face Of creation in
the twilight of remotest ages, with
four fingers on each forefodt and
four toes on each hindfoot. The
Professor might have had it at
heart to illustrate in the case, both
Of late and early comers, the truth
of the adage, "Sero venientibus
ossa," for nothing but bones stared
at the audience from the charts on
the great frame. Fore feet and
hind feet, fore arms and leg, molars,
upper and lower, of all the
equine fossildom, which, last
night, was to do the battle of sci
ence against Moses, Milton & Co.
Even during the lecture any one
who had casually dropped in would
have imagined that Prot. Huxley
was demonstration in anatomy in a
college of veterinary surgeons; and,
indeed, the lecture itself was so
strictly confined to the horse, in so
far as he eluciated the theory of
evolution, that wag might have
been tempted to observe that the
Professor was certainly riding a
hobby. 1t must be acknowledged,
however, that he rode these antique,
ossified chargers up to the outworks
of the tacitly designated enemy
with much spirit, and with a per-
feet command Of hand and knee.
The only thing wanting to COM
plete the victory of the equus over
fdes was one toe, which the Pro
fessor was confident would ulti-
mately be found if they could only
get at the geological formations in
which the absconding little mem
Der had secreted itself. The audi.
ence listened throughout with
marked attention, and loudly ap-
plauded Professor Huxley's re-
marks touching the eminent SER
vices rendered to science by Prof
Marsh, of New Haven.
Professor Huxley opened his lee
ture by briefly detailing the argu.
ment brought forward Wednesday
evening and summarizing the con.
clusions then arrived at. The point
upon which he laid the greatest
stress, and which was Introductory