ANIMAL ORGANIZATION. 9.9 



recent, and apparently most accurate microscop- 

 ical observations tend to show that no globular 

 structure exists in any of these textures.* 



The element which we can recognise without 

 difficulty as composing the greater portion of 

 animal structures, is that which is known by the 

 name of the cellular texture. Although bearing 

 the same designation as the elementary material 

 of the vegetable fabric, it differs widely from 

 it in its structure and mechanical properties. 

 It is not, like that of plants, composed of a 

 union of vesicles ; but is formed of a congeries 

 of extremely thin laminse, or plates, variously 

 connected together by fibres, and by other plates 

 25 which cross them in different direc- 



tions, leaving cavities or cells. (Fig. 

 25). These cells, or rather interven- 

 ing spaces, communicate freely with 

 one another ; and, in fact, may be 

 considered as one common cavity, 

 subdivided by an infinite number of partitions 

 into minute compartments. Hence the cellular 

 texture is throughout readily permeable to fluids 

 of all kinds, and retains these fluids in the man- 

 ner, and on the same principle, as a sponge. 



The cellular texture is not only the element, 

 or essential material employed by nature in the 



* See the Appendix to Dr. Hodgkin and Dr. Fisher"s translation 

 of Edwards's work on the Influence of Physical Agents on Life, 

 p. 440. 



