170 
HISTOLOGY OF ANIMALS. 
or more or less transverse 
branches. Within them, the 
blood-vessels, from which the 
nutritious matter is poured 
out, are contained ; this being 
taken up by the canaliculi 
opening into the canals, is 
by them conveyed to the 
whole concentric arrangement 
of bone-cells ; each bone-cell, 
therefore, may be considered as a reservoir of nutri- 
ment for the bony matter surrounding it. 
It may be asked, since all the structures I have 
described are of a tubular character, where is the 
osseous matter ? To observe this, we must have 
recourse to much higher powers, and it will then be 
found that the bone consists of a congeries of more or 
less minute angular particles deposited in an organized 
matrix. Fig. 131 is a re- 
presentation of a portion of 
the same section of bone as 
Fig. 129 was copied from, 
but the power employed has 
been one of 500 diameters ; 
the bone-cells and their cana- 
liculi are well shown, and the 
minute dots occurring in all 
the spaces between the cana- 
liculi are the granules, or 
FIG. 131 . 
Portion of a transverse section 
of a femur magnified 500 diame- 
ters, showing the granules of 
osseous matter. 
fig. 130 . 
Vertical section of human femur 
magnified 40 diameters. 
