CONNECTIVE TISSUE. 



173 



to be split into lamellae. The specimens were mounted with equal parts of 

 glycerine and water. 



With enlargements of 300-500 such lamellee show in a dark ground 

 basis-substance light fields with numerous connecting branches, generally 

 known as Von Recklinghausen's serous canaliculi ; and even an enlargement 

 of 500 is sufficient to prove that the outlines of these light spaces do not 

 appear smooth at all, but granular viz., abundantly perforated, and that 

 the brown or gray-brown looking basis-substance is finely granular. 



With higher powers (immersion lenses, with enlargements of 800-1200) 

 the following facts are observed : Within the light spaces oblong nuclei, with 

 very faint contours and a great number of extremely pale granules, are visible. 

 The light spaces are connected with their neighbors by light processes of 

 various sizes, traversing the basis-substance. The borders of these light 

 fields and their branches are abundantly perforated, like a sieve, throughout, 

 so that .true outlines do not exist. Fine, light tracts run from every light 

 space and its branches through the basis-substance, profusely ramifying and 

 anastomosing, sometimes radiating, and thus forming an extremely delicate 

 light net-work, the threads of which traverse the basis-substance in all 

 directions, and connect with the light fields and their processes at the whole 

 circumference. What with lower power was recognized as granular struct- 

 ure is by higher enlargements elucidated as a very fine light net-work, the 

 meshes of which are filled by the dark brown basis-substance. (See Fig. 64.) 





FIG. 65. CORNEA OF A CAT, Two YEARS OLD, STAINED WITH NITRATE 

 OF SILVER. TRANSVERSE SECTION. [PUBLISHED IN 1878.] 



S, light fields containing fine pale granules, with coarse and fine light offshoots. N, nerve- 

 fibers in connection with the light reticulum, which traverses the dark brown basis-sub- 

 stance, B, throughout. Magnified 1000 diameters. 



On thin transverse sections the silver-stained cornea of the cat shows the 

 same ramifying light fields as in split preparations, with the only difference 

 that their vertical diameters are notably smaller, while their horizontal diam- 

 eters are the same as those of the light fields of the lamellae. The light spaces 

 branch out in all directions, so that not only the light fields of the same 

 stratum are connected with each other, but even those of different layers 

 anastomose by ascending and descending more or less oblique processes. 

 Besides these ramifications, especially in the outer strata of the cornea, some 

 fine straight light lines are met with, which, for reasons given below, are 

 proved to be nerve-fibers. On transverse sections, also, the brown basis- 

 substance is traversed by light ramifying tracts, to such an extent that the 



