The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-09-29
PROF. HUxLEYs INvEs11eA-
TIoNs IN FIELDS -pFHcIENcE
He Searched for Facts and Then Set
Them Forth With -CIearness.

He Searched for Facts and Then Set
Them Forth With cIearness.
He felt his way carefully toward the
great central doctrine OF unity, denial
of which is only heresyA from which a
man need pray to be delivered. Hux-
ley made Schwann's cell theory the
basis of examination into the identity
of structure in plants and animals.
He showed-and this with luminous
skill in the famous 'lay sermon" on
''The Physical Basis of LifeYAthat the
cell Is the unit of structure, and not
the unit of function; that, in technical
terms, it is morphological, not physio-
logical, the "protOplaSm" being the
fundamental element.
Huxley soon found that extinct ami
mails also afforded play for his favor
lite inquiry into the architecture and
affinities of organisms, and hence, in
his hands, the fossil became, as it
were, a living thing, bringing a mes
sage from the past.
But what will perhaps make closer
appeal to the general inquirer is the
story Of the fulfillment of HuXley's
prophecy as to the discovery of the
pedigree of the horse, which, down to
1870, had been traced to a three-toed
ancestor.
Fossil remains Of horses of an ex-
listing type are found as far back as
the later Tertiary period; in the later
Miocene or middle Tertiary beds,
horse-like animals with three toes, the
middle one of which touched the
ground have been discovered, while
the early Miocene deposits have yield
ed an animal with horse-like charac-
ters having three complete toes. Here
the European evidence comes to an
end, and in summarizing it in his pres
idential address to the Geological So
ciety in 1870, Huxley said that:
IF the expectation raised by the
splints Of the horses that, in some an
cestors of the horses, these splints
would be found to be complete digits
has been verified, we are furnished
with very strong reasons for looking
for a no less complete verification Of
the expectation that the three-toed
Plagiolophus-like "avus" of the horse
must have been a five-toed "atavus" at
some early period
In 1876 when visiting America, he
was shown by Prof. Marsh the re-
markable fossil found, among others
in the Eocene formations of North
America, to which the name Orohip-
pus was given, and which was then
the Oldest known member of the
equine series" r.
1t had four complete toes on the
front limb, and three toes on the hin6
limb, besides other features linking it
with the chain of equine ancestry. The
discovery evidenced that the accepted
theory of the European origin of the
horse must be abandoned in favor OF
America, into which continent the ami
NAL, having become extinct, was i'm.
ported by the Spaniards.
In commenting on this wonderful
find" in a lecture given at New York
in September, 1876, Huxley repeated
the prophecy uttered six years before.
"The knowledge we now possess JUS
titles us completely in the anticipation
that, when the still lower Eocene de.
posits, and those which belong to thu
Cretaceous period, have yielded VI
their remains of ancestral equine ami
mails, we shall find, first. form will
four complete toes and a rudiment O.