VERT

(Fr. vert, green.) In Heraldry, one of the colours or tinctures employed in blazonry. It is equivalent to emerald among precious stones, to Venus among planets. In engraving it is represented by diagonal lines from the dexter to the sinister sides of the escutcheon. VERTEBRiE. The bones of the spine. They are divided into true and false; the former constituting the upper, and the latter the lower portion of the spinal column. The true vertebrae are further divided into those of the neck, back, and loins; or the cervical, dorsal, and lumbar vertebrae. There are seven cervical vertebrje; the first of which supports tlie head, and is called the atlas; the second is ihe dental a: it has a tooth-like proce , forming a kind of pivot upon which the head rotates. The dorsal vertebrae are twelve in number, and the lumbar vertebrae five. In the neck the spine projects forwards; it is then curved backwards in the thorax, and in the loins again projects forwards. There is an elastic substance between the vertebrae, admitting of a certain degree of motion; small between the individual bones, but considerable as affects the whole column. The vertebra, and their projections or proce es, afford attachments for a number of muscles and ligaments; and the spinal marrow is lodged in the bony canal which their several perforations form. VERTEBRATES, rertebrata. (Lat. vertebra, a 5om<! of the spine.) The name of a primary division of the animal kingdom, including those which have a cerebrospinal nervous axis, protected by a bony cylinder composed of a succe ion of vertebrae, which are expanded into a cranium, where they inclose the enlarged anterior or upper portion of the nervous axis, called the brain. Sec Zoology. VERTEX (Lat. the top), in Astronomy, is the point of the sphere directly over head, more frequently called the zenith. The vertex of an angle or a cone is the angular point, or that in which the sides of the angle or of the cone intersect. The vertex of a curve is the point in which the diameter meets the curve. [s. 1304]