SENSATION AND SENSIFEROUS ORGANS. , 99 



The olfactory organ, therefore, is a specially modified part of the gen- 

 eral integument. 



The human ear would seem to present greater difficulties. For the 

 essential part of the sense-organ, in this case, is the membranous laby- 

 rinth, a bag of complicated form, which lies buried in the depths of the 

 floor of the skull, and is surrounded by dense and solid bone. Here, 

 however, recourse to the study of development readily unravels the 

 mystery. Shortly after the time when the olfactory organ appears as 

 a depression of the skin on the side of the fore-part of the head, the 

 auditory organ appears as a similar depression on the side of its back 

 part. The depression, rapidly deepening, becomes a small pouch, and 

 then, the communication with the exterior becoming shut off, the pouch 

 is converted into a closed bag, the epithelial lining of which is a part of 

 the general epidermis segregated from the rest. The adjacent tissues, 

 changing first into cartilage and then into bone, inclose the auditorv 

 sac in a strong case, in which it undergoes its further metamorphoses ; 

 while the drum, the ear-bones, and the external ear are superadded by 

 no less extraordinary modifications of the adjacent parts. Still more 

 marvelous is the history of the development of the organ of vision. 

 In the place of the eye, as in that of the nose and that of the ear, the 

 young embryo presents a depression of the general integument ; but, 

 in man and the higher animals, this does not give rise to the proper 

 sensory organ, but only to part of the accessory structures concerned 

 in vision. In fact, this depression, deepening and becoming converted 

 into a shut sac, produces only the cornea, the aqueous humor, and the 

 crystalline lens of the perfect eye. 



The retina is added to this by the outgrowth of the wall of a por- 

 tion of the brain into a sort of bag or sac with a narrow neck, the con- 

 vex bottom of which is turned outward or toward the crystalline lens. 

 As the development of the eye proceeds, the convex bottom of the bag 

 becomes pushed in, so that it gradually obliterates the cavity of the 

 sac, the previously convex wall of which becomes deeply concave. The 

 sac of the brain is now like a double nightcap ready for the head, but 

 the place which the head would occupy is taken by the vitreous humor, 

 while the layer of nightcap next it becomes the retina. The cells of 

 this layer which lie farthest from the vitreous humor, or, in other words, 

 bound the original cavity of the sac, are metamorphosed into the rods 

 and cones. Suppose now that the sac of the brain could be brought 

 back to its original form ; then the rods and cones would form part of 

 the lining of a side pouch of the brain. But one of the most wonder- 

 ful revelations of embryology is the proof of the fact that the brain 

 itself is, at its first beginning, merely an infolding of the epidermic 

 layer of the general integument. Hence it follows that the rods and 

 cones of the vertebrate eye are modified epidermic cells, as much as 

 the crystalline cones of the insect or crustacean eye are ; and that 

 the inversion of the position of the former in relation to light arises 



