Models may be and often have been devised imitating some of the
phenomena of division, but none of them have reproduced the peculiarity
which characterises divisions of living tissues, that _the position
of chemical differentiation_ is _determined by those divisions_. For
example, models of segmentation, whether radial or linear, may be made
by the vibration of plates as in the familiar Chladni figures of the
physical laboratory, or by the bowing of a tube dusted on the inside
with lycopodium powder, and in various other ways. The sand or the
powder will be heaped up in the nodes or regions of least movement, and
the patterns thus formed reproduce many of the geometrical features
of segmentation. But in the segmentations of living things the nodes
and internodes, once determined by the dividing forces, would each
become the seat of appropriate and distinct chemical processes leading
to the differentiation of the parts, and the deposition of the bones,
petals, spines, hairs, and other organs in relation to the meristic
ground-plan. The "ripples" of meristic division not merely divide but
differentiate, and when a "ripple" forks the result is not merely a
division but a reduplication of the organ through which the fork runs.
An example illustrating such a consequence is that of the half-vertebrae
of the Python. On the left side the vertebra is single (Fig. 7) and
bears a single rib, but on the right side a division has occurred with
the result that two half-vertebrae, each bearing a rib, are formed, one
standing in succession to the other. We cannot, indeed, imagine any
operation of physiological division carried out in such an organ as a
vertebra, passing through a plane at right angles to the long axis of
the body, which does not necessarily involve the further process of
reduplication.
As the meristic system of distribution spreads through the body,
chemical differentiations follow in its track, with segmentation and
pattern as the visible result. Could we analyse these simultaneous
phenomena and show how it is that the places of chemical differentiation
are determined by the system of division, progress would then be rapid.
It is here that all speculation fails.
[Illustration: FIGS. 7 and 8. Two examples of imperfect division in the
vertebræ of a python. _I_, the vertebræ 147-150 from the right side,
showing imperfect division between the 148th and 149th. The condition on
the left side of this vertebra was the same. _II_, the dorsal surface of
vertebræ 165-167. On the right side the 166th is double and bears two
ribs, but on the left side it is normal and has one rib only.]
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