THEIR MICRO-CHEMICAL RELATIONS. 79 



interstices or cavities which do not extend through the whole 

 bundle, but give it the appearance of being strongly marked at 

 intervals by black lines. The transverse striae in many of these 

 parallelepipeds are only indicated by the presence of fine granules 

 arranged in a more or less decidedly parallel direction. Some 

 of these strongly granulated fibres appear as if they had been 

 eroded on their longer sides ; but there is never any appearance of 

 the bundle being divided longitudinally. The substance of the 

 fibres is rendered intensely yellow by an aqueous solution of iodine, 

 and the addition of water cause it to swell to a trifling extent only. 

 Nuclei and sarcolemma can only be recognised at occasional spots, 

 and for the most part after the addition of iodine. (F. P. 15, F. 3.) 



In concentrated nitric acid the primitive bundles dissolve into 

 yellowish parallelepipeds with a sharply defined transverse stria- 

 tion, after an interval of time varying from one to ten hours. 

 The bundles are cleft only in a transverse direction, exhibiting 

 larger or smaller openings between the striae, in the same manner as 

 when they are exposed to the action of concentrated hydrochloric 

 acid; that is to say, two adjacent transverse discs are more separated 

 from one another at one point than at another, and are only partly 

 in contact. At some of the smaller sections of the bundles, all the 

 transverse discs diverge from one side in a brush or tuft-like 

 manner. There is never any trace of longitudinal striation. 

 (F. P. 15, F. 2.) 



Very dilute nitric acid exerts the same action as dilute hydro- 

 chloric acid. 



In concentrated sulphuric acid, the muscular fibres, after from 

 ten to thirty hours 5 action, are resolved into a reddish purple 

 viscid fluid, in which, at a first glance through the microscope, we 

 can only perceive longer or shorter filaments ; a more accurate 

 examination, however, shows that they are very thin hone- 

 shaped or fusiform plates. The red colour disappears on the 

 addition of water, when a greyish yellow coagulum is deposited, 

 which appears perfectly amorphous, as seen under the microscope, 

 exhibiting merely granular patches, in the same manner as we 

 commonly observe with the coagulated protein -bodies. 



Sulphuric acid, when somewhat diluted, exerts precisely the 

 same action as concentrated hydrochloric acid, bringing the trans- 

 verse striae very distinctly into view. The longitudinal striae 

 which Mulder and Bonders saw in these cases, I could scarcely 

 recognise with any degree of distinctness even after the prolonged 

 action of this acid. 



