HISTOLOGY OF THE LENS. 363 



In the greater number of Fishes and Amphibia, and in some 

 Mammals, as in the Rabbit, Hare, and Dolphin, both the anterior 

 and the posterior extremities of the fibres of the lens terminate 

 in the manner just described, so that the posterior and anterior 

 raphe's have the appearance of straight lines. These, however, 

 do not run in the same direction, but cut one another at right 

 angles. In these cases the fibres do not embrace the entire half, 

 but only a portion of the lens, in the following manner. If, for 

 the sake of example, the anterior extremity of a fibre com- 

 mences at the end of the anterior raphe, it terminates, after 

 passing backwards in the direction of a meridian, at the middle 

 of the opposite raphe, and consequently in the axis of the lens. 

 ' If a fibre commences at the centre of the anterior raphe, it 

 passes to the extremity of the posterior one. In the human 

 foetus and in the newly born of many, perhaps the greater 

 number of animals, the junction of the fibres both on the an- 

 terior and posterior surface of the lens presents the following 

 complicated relations. The raphe's form a kind of star, com- 

 posed essentially of three rays, the point of junction of which 

 corresponds to the axis of the lens. The angle comprised 

 between any two of the rays is 120. The rays of the anterior 

 and of the posterior stella are not placed in the same plane, but 

 so that each anterior ray is intermediate to two rays of the 

 posterior star ; in other words, there is an angle of 60 between 

 the several rays of the anterior and posterior stars. Lastly, 

 there are animals in which, as in the adult Man, the stella is 

 composed of a larger number of rays. Thus, for example, in the 

 anterior stella of Man as many as nine rays may be counted, 

 and a still greater number in the posterior (fig. 373 A and B), 

 Not unfrequently the rays divide at their extremities; but even 

 with this complication those of the anterior and posterior stella 

 do not lie in the same planes.. This complication affects only 

 the superficial layers of the lens ; in the deeper layers these 

 complicated stella, as is well known to occur in the adult Man, 

 become converted into the three-rayed stella. 



All the earlier inquirers (Werneck, Hannover, Kolliker, 

 Henle, Leydig, Becker, and others) believed that the ends of 

 the fibres did not come into immediate contact with the rays of 

 the star, but that there was an intervening space, which was 



