MAMMALIAN. 57 



nuclei of the opposite side are brought into very close and intimate connection with 

 each other, as well as with the various bundles traversing the antero-lateral network 

 in the neighborhood of the raphe. 



A large portion of the fibres belonging to the anterior division of the root bend 

 backwards, towards the network constituting the outer part of the nucleus ; these 

 fibres interlace in every variety of direction among the longitudinal bundles, and very 

 many of them are seen to enter the large multipolar cells ; others either directly 

 or after passing through cells, penetrate the deeper lying portions of the nucleus, 

 from whence they turn off in the direction of the sujyerior peduncle over Avhich some 

 of them pass towards the cerebellum. The more anterior or inner set pass towards 

 the inferior vermiform process, the middle set inwards in the direction of the corpus 

 dentatum, the outer or posterior set towards the floccidus. 



The mass of the nucleus is, however, so large, and the course of the fibres so 

 extremely intricate, and so complicated by the numberless bundles derived from 

 and proceeding to different and often distant parts of the cerebellum, that the 

 determination of the connections of the auditory nucleus and the destinations 

 of its root-bundles becomes one of the most difficult problems in the Histology of 

 the nervous system. The necessary study would, however, probably be well repaid, 

 by the light thus thrown on the nature of the cerebellum, an organ evidently enter- 

 ing into very intimate relations with the great nuclei of the trapezium and pons 

 Varolii. 



