496: ALLIS. [Vou. XII. 
in front of the trigeminal foramen and separated from that 
foramen by only a thin layer of bone. 
Immediately below the upper, lateral portion of the eye-muscle 
canal there is, in the side wall of the main canal, an oblong 
opening, the palatine foramen (//7), through which the palatine 
branch of the facialis leaves the cranium. This foramen is 
closed externally by the base of the lateral wing of the paras- 
phenoid, and leads into a canal between that bone and the base 
of the cranium. This latter canal, which may be called the 
palatine canal (fc, Fig. 17, Pl. XXII), begins behind the pala- 
tine foramen, at an opening found in the angle formed by the 
hind edge of the wing of the parasphenoid and the lateral edge 
of the body of that bone, the opening being almost but not 
entirely enclosed in bone (zcf/7, Fig. 17, Pl. XXII). Beginning 
at this point the canal runs at first medianward and forward 
to the hind edge of the palatine foramen, then almost directly 
forward across that foramen and onward toward the anterior end 
of the head, lying in part between the cartilaginous base of the 
skull and the parasphenoid and vomer, and in part in those two 
bones. Immediately in front of the anterior edge of the pala- 
tine foramen a branch canal is sent forward and outward to the 
orbit, the opening of the canal lying in the angle between the 
anterior edge of the wing of the parasphenoid and the lateral 
edge of the body of the bone in front of the wing. Imme- 
diately in front of this canal a second branch canal is given off, 
the internal carotid canal, which pierces the basis cranii and 
enters the cranial cavity along the median edge of the basi- 
sphenoid as already described. 
Through the posterior opening of the palatine canal the 
internal carotid artery and the pharyngeal branch of the glos- 
sopharyngeus enter the canal and join the palatinus facialis 
(No. 133, p. 494). The opening may therefore be called the 
internal carotid foramen, although it is only indirectly the point 
of entrance of that artery to the cranium. Through the first 
branch canal the posterior branch of the palatinus facialis enters 
the orbit. The external opening of this canal may therefore 
be called the foramen of that nerve (ppffr, Fig. 17, Pl. XXII). 
Anterior to this point and anterior to the ventral opening of 
