98 
DR. MARTIN BARRY ON FIBRE. 
I am acquainted with. This body, sketched in fig. 118, was composed of fiat filaments 
(|S. y), and had a loop-like termination, to the very extremity of which, — that is, into 
the loop itself, — the filaments in question were continued, and which indeed they 
formed. Nothing was seen in this object besides filaments, longitudinal and spiral, 
for no membranous covering could be discerned. A remarkable crossing of the fila- 
ments of opposite sides (a), was noticed between the trunk of this object and its loop. 
Facts observed in the Formation and Structure of Muscle. 
41. In May 1840, I offered to the Society some remarks on the origin of muscle-p? 
in which it was mentioned that I was then unable to state the mode of formation of 
the fibrillae within the cylinder. Subsequent observations, to be presently detailed, 
seem to throw some light upon that subject. In the mean time, however, a memoir 
by W. Bowman has been read, £ ‘ On the Minute Structure and Movements of Volun- 
tary Muscle^.” This circumstance would have inclined me not to return to the sub- 
ject, but for its essential connection with researches previously begun by myself; 
namely, those “ on the Corpuscles of the Blood and in recording the results, I per- 
ceive with regret that in the main points they are at variance with the observations 
of the author just mentioned. 
42. The arrangement of cells into a necklace-like object, has been referred to in a 
former page (par. 20) : and though I have delineated cells in this state in two previous 
memoirs §, they are sketched in outline in the present paper, fig. 28 ; which represents 
cells derived from blood-corpuscles of the Frog. These corpuscles or cells were 
filled with discs (fig. 29), arisen out of the nuclei of the cells. On the disappearance 
of the septa between the cells, there is formed a tube. In early stages, this tube be- 
comes broken, by manipulation, into fragments (fig. 30) ; which fragments represent, 
apparently, an altered state of the original cells. Within the tube there arise other 
tubes (see the columns in fig. 30), having their origin in the discs with which the 
original cells were filled. These inner or second tubes (figs. 32, 33) are met with in 
after stages, no longer breaking transversely into fragments, but easily separating in 
a longitudinal direction. Within these second tubes are nuclei (figs. 42 to 44 a), 
which divide, subdivide (fig. 42) ||, and give origin to discs. The discs fill the tube, 
arranging themselves with curious regularity (fig. 44 /3), and in a manner similar to 
that represented by me in the Philosophical Transactions for 1841 ^[, as the state of 
blood-red discs in tubes at the edge of the crystalline lens. These discs appear to 
undergo changes like those passed through by their progenitors, the corpuscles of the 
t In my first paper on the Corpuscles of the Blood, l. c., p. 605. 
\ Philosophical Transactions, 1840, p. 457. 
§ Philosophical Transactions, 1840, Plate XXX. figs. 14 — 17 ; 1841, Plate XXIII. figs. 135, 136. 
|| We thus find the same process in operation here, which I formerly described as taking place in the so- 
called “primary” cell, — namely, division of the nucleus. 
Plate. XXIV. figs. 145—148. 
