Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/633

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
OWE
583
OWE

in the Oxford clay of Wiltshire. For the latter paper the Royal Society in 1848 awarded its author the royal medal. He also contributed the article "Cephalopoda" to the Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology. Professor Owen's researches in the molluscous or heterogangliate sub-kingdom led him to divide the Cephalopoda into the two orders, Dibranchiata and Tetrabranchiata. In the former order he placed the Spirula and the Belemnites, and in the latter the Nautilus and most of the other Cephalopods having chambered and siphunculated shells. He also demonstrated the inferiority of the floating Pteropodato the Gasteropods. With regard to the Acephalous Molluscs, his observations on the species of Brachiopoda induced him to interpose them between the Acephales testacés and the Acephales sans Coquilles of Cuvier. In 1832 the first of Owen's papers on the anatomy and physiology of the monotrematous and marsupial animals appeared in the Philosophical Transactions, "On the mammary glands of Ornithorhynchus paradoxus." This was followed in 1834 by a paper on the ova of the same animal, and in the same year by one on the young of Ornithorhynchus, in the Zoological Transactions. In 1837 in the Philosophical Transactions appeared a memoir on the brain of the marsupials; and in the following year in the Zoological Transactions another on the osteology of the same order. In the same year the marsupial nature of the extinct Thylacotherium (Amphitherium) and Phascolotherium of the Stonesfield slate was discussed in the Transactions of the Geological Society. In 1839 in the Zoological Transactions appeared the outlines of a classification of the Marsupialia. Professor Owen is also the author of the articles "Marsupialia" and "Monotremata" in the Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology. With regard to the anatomy of the marsupials and monotremes, Owen has discovered certain cerebral characters, especially the absence of the great commissure or corpus callosum between the hemispheres of the brain, which have induced him in his latest work on the classification of Mammalia to group them together in a separate subclass under the name Lyencephala. His study of the osteology and dentition of this subclass, and his observations on the organs and function of reproduction in the Ornithorhynchus and kangaroo have thrown light on many points of the greatest interest, which were previously entirely unknown. In the year 1834 appeared in the Zoological Transactions the first of Owen's papers on the Reptilia—"On the structure of the heart in the Perennibranchiate Batrachia." This was followed by a memoir in the Geological Transactions on the extinct Basilosaurus of Dr. Harlan, which by an examination of its dental tissues and by other characters Owen determined not to belong to the reptile class; he has referred it to the Cetacean order, under the name of Zeuglodon. In the same society's publications appeared a paper establishing the existence in England, during the eocene tertiary period, of serpents equalling in size the boa constrictors. In 1840, in the Transactions of the Linnæan Society was published his celebrated paper on the anatomy of the Lepedosiren annectens, which he refers to the class of fishes, in opposition to Dr. Natterer, its discoverer, who believed it to be a reptile. In 1841 appeared in the Geological Transactions an account of the teeth and osteology of a genus of extinct Batrachians, to which, from the microscopic structure of their teeth, he gave the name Labyrinthodon. In 1845 he communicated a description of the crania of an extinct genus of Reptilia (Dicynodon) to the Geological Society. To these contributions to the anatomy of reptiles are to be added a report on British fossil reptiles (part 1, 1839; part 2, 1842), in the Transactions of the British Association; and a history of British fossil reptiles, 1849-51; besides several other memoirs. After proposing several important modifications in the Cuvierian classification of reptiles, Professor Owen has been finally led, by the discovery of Lepidosiren and Archegosaurus, no longer to regard Reptilia as a separate class equal to birds or mammals. He now places them with fishes in one class, that of cold-blooded Vertebrata or Hæmatocrya. His published observations on the Entozoa commenced in 1835, when in the Zoological Transactions appeared a description of a microscopic entozoon which infests the muscular tissue—the Triclinia spiralis. Another paper on Entozoa appeared in the same publication in the same year. Owen is also the author of the article "Entozoa" in the Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, and the proposer of a new system of classification for Entozoa. In 1832 he announced the earliest discovery of an entophyte in a description of a microscopic species of fungus discovered on the inner surface of the air passages of a flamingo. In 1838 the first of his memoirs on the struthious birds appeared in the Zoological Transactions, "On the anatomy of the Apteryx australis." This was succeeded in the following year by the "Notice of the fragment of a femur of a gigantic bird of New Zealand (Dinornis)." The gigantic extinct struthious genera, Dinornis and Palapteryx, were made the subjects of five succeeding memoirs. Professor Owen is also author of the article "Aves" in the Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, and of a history of British fossil birds, in conjunction with British mammalia, 1846. His other writings may be referred to the following heads:—I. Palæontology, including his description of the megatherioid quadrupeds, 1842; his papers in the Geological Transactions on the Mammalia of the eocene formations; his memoir in the same series on the extinct gigantic armadillo (Glyptodon); his description of the fossil Mammalia collected in the voyage of the Beagle, 1840; his history of British fossil mammals; and his paleontology, which has just reached a second edition. II. Philosophical anatomy and physiology, comprehending the well-known work on the archetype and homologies of the vertebrate skeleton, 1848; "On the nature of limbs," 1849; "Principes d'osteologie comparée," Paris, 1855; and on parthenogenesis, 1849. III. Odontology, including the "Odontography," the most complete and philosophical treatise on the comparative anatomy of the teeth extant; the article "Teeth" in the Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, and the article "Odontography" in the eighth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Professor Owen's masterly generalization on the homologies and classification of the mammalian teeth, and his microscopic observations on the teeth of fishes and reptiles, have done more to advance the science of odontology than has been accomplished by any other observer. IV. The Classification of Mammalia, in a memoir published in the second volume of the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, in which cerebral characteristics are proposed as the main basis of a classificatory system. V. The Anatomy of the anthropoid apes as compared with that of man, a series of papers in the Zoological Transactions on the osteology and dentition of the Gorilla, Chimpanzee, and Orang. To this long catalogue is to be added two volumes of published lectures on the anatomy of the Invertebrata and of fishes, and annotations to the posthumous papers of John Hunter, which Professor Owen has lately edited. Such is a slight and imperfect sketch of his principal scientific labours. In 1856 he retired from the curatorship of the Hunterian museum and the Hunterian professorship, and accepted the office he now holds at the British museum. Professor Owen married the daughter of his early coadjutor, Mr. Clift. He has received various marks of distinction from governments and scientific bodies, both at home and abroad. He is D.C.L., F.R.S., and G.S. Hon. M.R.S. Ed.; Ord. Boruss. pour le mérite eq.; Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur; Acad. Sc. Inst. Paris Socius; Imp. Sc. Petrop. et Reg. Sc. Berolin, Corresp. He is also an hon. fellow of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, England and Ireland.—F. C. W.

OWEN, Robert, was born at Newton in Montgomeryshire, on the 14th May, 1771; and died there after a varied and eventful life on the 17th November, 1858. He owed nothing to birth and education, but everything to his own boldness, energy, and perseverance. He left his native place at a very early age for London. From London he went to Manchester, to engage in manufacturing pursuits. In 1799 he married the daughter of Mr. David Dale, who had established cotton-mills at New Lanark on the Clyde. The chief management of these mills was intrusted to Mr. Owen, and with the best results; but Mr. Owen's ambition soared higher than worldly gain. He endeavoured by education and by every social agency to make New Lanark a model community. His success herein attracted the widest and deepest attention, and many were the distinguished visitors to New Lanark. But New Lanark became a theatre too narrow for Mr. Owen's aspirations. He began to agitate as a social and educational reformer with his innate and indomitable vigour. His principal doctrine was that man is the creature of circumstances; that his character is formed for him, not by him; and that the aim must be to bring him into circumstances favourable to his development. At first Mr. Owen's views were exceedingly popular; but at a large meeting in London in 1817, Mr. Owen denounced all the religions in the world as the fruitful sources of error; and this naturally brought on his head a storm of obloquy, and was an obstacle to all his future plans. A few years after he travelled to America, and in 1824 he bought the estate of Harmony in Indiana, consisting of thirty thousand