Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1874 — Structure of a Cow’s Horn. [ARTICLE]

Structure of a Cow’s Horn.

It is often the case that in the commonest objects we may see, if we like, beautiful examples of engineering structures. 1 take the anatomy of the cow’s horn as a good example. A few days since I was inspecting ’'tlie large tanneries of the Messrs. Hamlyn, at Buckfastleigh, on the River Dart, Devonshire. In one of the backyards was a mountain of the skulls and horns of cows.of all sons and kinds. Here there was a treasure worthy of investigation; so I got on to the mountain of horns and skulls and picked out some beautiful specimens which Mr. Hamlyn kindly gave me in order to make sections, etc. I find that over the brain of the cow a strong roof of bone is thrown in the shape,of an arch, so as to form a substantial foundation for the horns. This roof is not solid, but is again strengthened below by a series of bony arches that aie so distributed As jp form of hallow chambers, thus forming a structure uniting strength with lightness. The problem now is, how to fasten the horn on each side on to this buttress. The horn itself must, of course,'be formed of horn proper, t. e., hardened air. In the rhinocerb3 we find a horn composed entirely of a solid mass of what is really a bunch of hair, agglutinated together; but this kind of horn wpuld have been much too heavy for the cow’s convenient use. What is to be done ? Why, hollow out the 'center of the

horn, of course; but stay— this will not do, because how is the horn to be supplied with blood-vessels? in fact, how is it to grow? Let us see how it is done by the Great Designer. . : ' ; ' Cut the born right across with a saw and you; will find inside another horn, only made of bone. If the section is made about one-third of the way down the length of the hprn you will be able to pick out a piec&jpf bone in the shape of a cone on which, or rather round which, the horn proper has shaped itself. This bone fits the cavity with the greatest accuracy; it is as light as the thinnest paper and yet as strong as a cone of tin, It is everywhere perforated with holes, which in life contained the nerves, the veins and arteries, and we know a cow has all these in her hornß; nerves, proved by the fact that cows do not like their horns touched and that they can scratch a fly off' their hides with the tip of the horn; arteries and veins, proved by the fact that a horn, when broken, will bleed, and that the horn of a living cow feels quite warm when held in the hand, besides which the nerves and arteries form a union between the internal core of bone and the external covering of horn proper. If we now cut the rest of the horn into sections we shall find that the inside of the bony part is really hollow, but that very strong buttresses of bone are thrown (about every inch or so) across the cavity of the horn in such a manner as to give it the greatest possible supand strength. I have cut a cow’s orn and skull into several sections to show these- buttresses of bone, and now that the preparation is finished I have- another specimen to show that there is design and beauty in all created objects. —Frank Buckland, in Land and Water.