18 THE ANNUAL ADDRESS OP THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE, 



remarkable structure which I have described. It has been 

 questioned which of these two elements it is that you are to 

 regard as the percipient organ. I do not know that physio- 

 logists have decided that question. I have looked into a 

 paper of Max Schultze's — in fact I have it on the table — and 

 he inclines to the opinion that it is the outer element. Now 

 is there anything in the outer element which can conceiv- 

 ably form a means of stimulation of the nerve, when that 

 element is acted on by light? 



I have spoken of the way in Avhich it is composed of 

 lamina; which come to pieces when dissected, after a certain 

 amount of maceration. I do not know whether it may not 

 be rash to say what I am about to say, because I do not 

 know that physiologists have suggested it — it is merely an 

 idea which occurred to myself, so you must take it for 

 what it is worth. I was reading an account of the electric 

 organ of electrical fishes, such as the torpedo. It is a very 

 remarkable organ, occupying a considerable space in these 

 fishes. It has a columnar structure, and the column again 

 consists of laminae placed one over the other. It has a 

 structure which may roughly be compared to that of the 

 l)asaltic columns in the Giant's Causeway, only here you 

 must think of laminaj as more numerous and not having that 

 curved surface which my friend Professor Hull is familiar 

 with in the Giant's Causeway. Now nobody questions that 

 somehow or other this is an organ by means of which these 

 fishes are enabled to give a shock, and the idea, of course, 

 is suggested, arc not these lamina? like the plates of a 

 battery? Is not one of these columns, roughly speaking, 

 something like a galvanic battery? But how the battery is 

 charged and discharged we do not know. In this case it 

 depends, no doubt, on the will of the animal as to what he 

 does, and nobody knows how he brings that about. 



Now it strikes me that there is a remarkable apparent 

 analogy betAveen the outer member of the rods and cones, 

 and these columns in electrical fishes. This gives rise to the 

 suspicion that possibly these outer members may act the 

 part of a microscopic battery, being charged somehow or 

 other. But how are they to be charged? Well, before I go 

 on to enter into any speculation on that I may mention that 

 .some years ago Professor Dewar and JMr. McKendrick made 

 some remarkable experiments, the results of which are given 

 in a paper published in the Transactions of the Royal Society 

 of Ldinhurgh. When an eye is dissected out, and the 



