175 
undergoes in the act of coagulation. 
the muscular fibres are principally formed, and no fibre they 
could form would be of smaller dimensions than the globules of 
which it is composed. Having expressed this opinion to Mr. 
Bauer, I was desirous that he should try to unravel a muscle so 
as to comeat the ultimate fibre. Several attempts of this kind 
were unsuccessfully made : but in one instance, in the muscles 
of the thigh of a roasted chicken, a detached fibre was exposed 
in the microscope, which occupied upon the micrometer, 
the same space in every respect with the four globules which 
I have mentioned to have seen united, and floating in the se- 
rum of the blood before the blood had completely coagulated ; 
the muscular fibre from the chicken could be traced to a 
greater length, but the indentations could not be distinguished 
farther on. 
In prosecuting this examination of the muscular fibres, Mr. 
Bauer found that after being boiled or roasted, and then 
macerated in water, changing the water every day for a 
week, they were much more readily separated from each 
other, and that he had no difficulty in procuring single fibres 
similar to the one described, from the coats of the human 
stomach ; the thigh of the sheep, and of the rabbit ; and from 
the salmon. The appearances that different fibres put on are 
represented in the annexed figures, 4, 5, 6 , of Plate viii. 
When the fibres are macerated for a longer time, they are 
readily broken down into a mass of globules of the size of those 
in the blood, deprived of their colour. The accuracy of the ap- 
pearances that have been described may be depended on ; how 
far they will afford the slightest grounds for an opinion that 
the globules are the materials, and the attraction between them 
the means, by which the single fibres are formed, and all the 
