572 
PIIOF. W. TURNER ON THE PLACENTATION OF THE LEMURS. 
about -jpo inch in its long diameter, though many were much smaller; they were 
depressed below the general plane of the mucosa and surrounded by crypts. The 
mucous membrane covering these areas was not succulent, but smooth ; it had not the 
brownish-yellow colour of the surrounding membrane, but glistened with a bluish tint ; 
it had a tense and, in places, a puckered appearance, not unlike a cicatrix on the sur- 
face of the skin. In the posterior third of the uterine cavity the folds on the surface of 
the mucosa had almost entirely disappeared, and in proximity to the os uteri the mem- 
brane was quite smooth and destitute both of folds and crypts. 
The mucous lining of the right uterine cornu was for the most part smooth and free 
from crypts ; but on and near the septum between the two cornua it was folded and 
subdivided into crypts. It was particularly noticed that the mucosa surrounding the 
opening of the Fallopian tube into the right cornu was perfectly smooth, whilst that 
surrounding the opening of the left tube was folded and covered with crypts. The 
uterus was separated from the vagina by a circular fold, which marked the os uteri, 
but no special cervix was separated from the general cavity of the corpus uteri. 
The crypts were shallow cup-like depressions on the free surface of the mucosa. 
When examined under magnifying-powers of from 20 to 40 diameters, they were seen 
to be arranged in groups, which were separated from each other by folds of the mucosa. 
The crypts in each group were bounded by slender shallow folds of the mucosa, which 
formed the septa between the individual crypts, and usually had a sinuous direction. 
When examined with higher powers of the microscope, the walls of the crypts were 
seen to be formed of an abundantly corpusculated and delicate connective tissue. 
As, before opening the uterus, I had injected, with the aid of my museum-assistant, 
Mr. A. B. Stirling, the uterine arteries with gelatine and carmine, I was enabled to 
study the disposition of the vessels in the walls of the crypts. Ascending from the 
deeper part of the mucosa to the crypt-layer were numerous small arteries filled with a 
red injection, which divided into branches that ended in a compact capillary plexus. 
This plexus was situated in the connective-tissue walls of the crypts ; its vessels had a 
sinuous course following the curvatures of the crypt-walls. Not only did the capillaries 
belonging to the crypts of the same group form a freely anastomosing plexus, but the 
capillaries of adjacent groups also freely anastomosed with each other, so that a con- 
tinuous plexus was distributed throughout the crypt-layer of the mucosa, which gave to 
the surface of the injected mucous membrane a bright red colour. 
The epithelium had been to a great extent lost from the surface of the mucosa, but 
at the sides and bottom of the crypts, where it was more protected from injury, it could 
be seen. The cells were columnar in shape, and set with their attenuated ends on 
the subepithelial connective tissue, whilst their broad free ends formed a mosaic 
pattern. 
Beneath the crypt-layer of the mucosa the utricular glands were situated. In ver- 
tical sections through the membrane the glands were repeatedly divided, so that only 
short segments of each gland could be seen. Although the stems of the gland-tubes 
