white membrane (the sclerotic), which encloses a nervous surface and certain refracting media (lens and 'humors') which cast a picture of the outer world thereon. It is in fact a little camera obscura, the essential part of which is the sensitive plate.
The retina is what corresponds to this plate. The optic nerve pierces the sclerotic shell and spreads its fibres radially in every direction over its inside, forming a thin translucent film (see [Fig. 3], Ret.). The fibres pass into a complicated apparatus of cells, granules, and branches ([Fig. 4]), and finally end in the so-called rods and cones ([Fig. 4],—9), which are the specific organs for taking up the influence of the waves of light. Strange to say, these end-organs are not pointed forward towards the light as it streams through the pupil, but backwards towards the sclerotic membrane itself, so that the light-waves traverse the translucent nerve-fibres, and the cellular and granular layers of the retina, before they touch the rods and cones themselves. (See [Fig. 5.])
The Blind Spot.—The optic nerve-fibres must thus be unimpressible by light directly. The place where the nerve enters is in fact entirely blind, because nothing but fibres exist there, the other layers of the retina only beginning round about the entrance. Nothing is easier than to prove the existence of this blind spot. Close the right eye and look steadily with the left at the cross in [Fig. 6], holding the book vertically in front of the face, and moving it to and fro. It will be found that at about a foot off the black disk disappears; but when the page is nearer or farther, it is seen. During the experiment the gaze must be kept fixed on the cross. It is easy to show by measurement that this blind spot lies where the optic nerve enters.
The Fovea.—Outside of the blind spot the sensibility of the retina varies. It is greatest at the fovea, a little pit lying outwardly from the entrance of the optic nerve, and round which the radiating nerve-fibres bend without passing over it. The other layers also disappear at the fovea, leaving the cones alone to represent the retina there. The sensibility of the retina grows progressively less towards its periphery, by means of which neither colors, shapes, nor number of impressions can be well discriminated.