88 Dr. Barry's renewed Inquiries concerning the 



one of them is more drawn out than the other, which becomes' 

 coiled around it as around an axis. Such a state being not un- 

 frequently presented by twdne-like muscular fibrils, fig. 9, after 

 the breaking of them up with needles, it is important that the 

 observer should be aware how the appearance is produced ; for 

 it may easily mislead him into the belief that he sees a row of 

 alternately longer and shorter " beads." 



The author is convinced that, with the exception of one case 

 already mentioned (fig. 6 h), in all instances where Prof. Bowman 

 speaks of fibrils, he had before him, ^vitliout recognising them, 

 nothing less than spirals. " Very reluctantly," says the author, 

 " should I again enter into a controversy with a fellow-country- 

 man whom I much esteem, were I not sure that his desire to 

 arrive at the truth in this matter is quite equal to my own." . 

 He then gives copies of five of Bowman's figures, fig. 10 a, h, c, 

 d, e, placing beside them five corresponding figures of his own, 

 fig. Wa,h, c, d, e, and showing the foi'mer to be, not, as sup- 

 posed by Bowman, rows of beads, but diiferent states of double 

 spirals. No doubt, it is added. Bowman's fibrils had undergone 

 some change; for three out of five of the preparations from 

 which they were drawn had been preserved in spirit, while the 

 fourth had been exposed to maceration. 



^T hat the author states of Bowman's figures of fibrils applies 

 equally to the drawings given by that physiologist of fasciculi, 

 though the latter are on a smaller scale. And no one, he thinks, 

 who will take the trouble carefully to compare Bowman's figures 

 39 and 40, in his memoir, Phil. Trans. 1840, as well as those in 

 his (Bowman's) Plate 19, in the same memoir, with what has 

 been said in the present paper of the change in breadth of the 

 transverse striae in consequence of the difierence in direction of 

 the winds of the crossing spirals, will refuse to admit that the 

 latter serves fully to explain the former. 



We are indebted to Bowman for representations of manifold 

 appearances presented by primitive fasciculi during their con- 

 traction and expansion, though from being unacquainted with 

 the spiral structure of muscle he could not explain them, and 

 wisely avoided the attempt to do so, except that he sought to 

 refer the approach towards, and withdrawal from one another of 

 the transverse striae, to contraction and expansion of his supposed 

 " discs." 



But what are these " discs " of Bowman ? Certainly not what 

 he thinks, layers of muscular substance, " primitive component 

 particles," an assemblage of which constitutes the primitive fas- 

 ciculus. Bowman's discs are really nothing else than the bright 

 parts of the transverse stri*, in which the single winds of the 

 spiral threads are arranged in adjacent order (fig. 5 «, a, a), and 



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