The Daily times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1886-1889, 1889-04-19
PROFESSOR MARTINS LECTURE.
His Talk Last sight on AN Egg or
story of Evolution"

His Talk Last Sight on AN Egg or
Story of Evolution
A large audience was present last
night in the large Thomas hall at Rich
mond College to hear Professor II.
Newell Martin. Ill. D., /. Il. =, OF
Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore,
deliver the second lecture in the course
on biology The subject was AN
Egg. or 4 Story of Evolution
The lecturer commenced 10y citing from
the last census reports the almost I'M
credible number of millions of dozens OF
errs produced by the American hen IN
ihe prosecution of her unprotected 81 M
FAINT industry But. be continued, com
mon as an egg is from this point OF
view. what a wonder is IL from another
An apparently dead mass OF chalky mat
ter. white and yolk, kept moderately
warm for twenIy-one days, is converted
into living chicken, breathing, NOV
inc and feeling. This wonderful
TACT had attracted the attention OF
naturalists from very early times. Aris.
fotlc. some $50 years B. c., wrote a irea.
Use ON il, and ever since 10 has been
frequent subject of investigation. To-
day we know tOlerably well hor an ege
is converted into "a chicken, and the
question which chiefly interests the bio
lo1ist is niy the process takes place ~
the roundabout way it does
The earlier notion was that there was
inside the cgg very small but quite
completely formed bird, which simply
had 10 grow at the expense of white and
volk. This doctrine was known IN the
seventeenth century as evolution, which
IS lust what we would not call IL to-day
when the word isused 10 indicate change
of "a living thing into some other form of
living thing Harvey, the discoverer of
the circulation of the blood. was one OF
the first 20 correct the older belief lie
showed that living matter i'm The cor,
not i'm the least like a chicken, IN the
course of incubation, gradually, while
increasing I'm size, al the same time bee
came transformed and moulded, or in
technical language, dege'oped into one.
By the aid of large number OF Ian
tern slides Dr. Martin illustrated the
structure of frcsh-laid egg, and traced
ts development lie showed that the
fresh egg had n very thin germinal mem
brane made up of living cells, and that
I'M the centre of this membrane the chick
originated Step by step its progress was
traced from the stage in which the en-
brVO had the essential structure OF the
sea class Of animals, 90 one in which
il clearly belonged, 10 some
higher group, but whether vertebrate
or not might be doubtful. Next
that the developing animal belonged 90
the back bOned group became clear and.
finally, that among all the classes OF
back toned animals, IL was 10 become a
bird IL was shown that the embryo al
one time possessed gill Sits, leading
from SIS mouth into is throat, just Ike
those of fish. Between these Sits were
gin skeletons ami gin arteries but no
gin iults-that is 10 say, there were no
real gills
The remainder OF the lecture was, for
the most part, taken mp with a consit-
Grafton of the question what these
transient and absolutely useless gill Sits
meant The former method of explain
ing them, and many similar facts OF en-
bry0 history was go say that the transient
of sympathy" or, i'm order, "tO complete
the scheme of nature" but this is mere
ly an imposing restatement OF the fact,
and explanation which explains nothing.
IT, on the other hand, we recognize
them as a long inheritance by the bird
from aquatic ancestors who bore and
used eils, we get real explanation OF
these gill remnants in the embryo chick
en-. Il is perhapsa little remarkable that
i'm the story of Creation, as given in the
first chapter of Genesis, birds are de-
scribed as having been formed in or
from the waters.
This modern method of explaining
many transient organs of the embryo as
mere remnants OF structure once essen
tial TO an ancestor has given a clue to
the meaning, 10 the rhy of hundreds OF
remarkable facts ia Development