e fibro-cartilage of
the ear. You sent me, then, the end of an ear, and it is
not the lower end--the lobe which women pierce to put
their gold ornaments in, but the upper end, into which
the cartilage extends.

"On the inner-side, I took off a fine skin, in which the
microscope showed me an epidermis, delicate, perfectly
intact; a derma no less intact, with little papillae and,
moreover, covered with a lot of fine human hairs. Each
of these little hairs had its root imbedded in its
follicle, and the follicle accompanied by its two little
glands. I will tell you even more: these hairs of down
were from four to five millimetres long, by from three
to five hundredths of a millimetre in diameter; this is
twice the size of the pretty down which grows on a
feminine ear; from which I conclude that your piece of
ear belongs to a man.

"Against the curved edge of the cartilage, I found
delicate striated bunches of the muscle of the helix,
and so perfectly intact that one would have said there
was nothing to prevent their contracting. Under the skin
and near the muscles, I found several little nervous
filaments, each one composed of eight or ten tubes in
which the medulla was as intact and homogeneous as in
nerves removed from a living animal or taken from an
amputated limb. Are you satisfied? Do you cry mercy?
Well! As for me, I am not yet at the end of my string.

"In the cellular tissue interposed between the cartilage
and the skin, I found little arteries and little veins
whose structure was perfectly cognizable. They contained
some serum with red blood globules. These globules were
all of them circular, biconcave and perfectly regular;
they showed neither indentations nor that
raspberry-like appearance which characterizes the blood
globules of a corpse.

"To sum up, my dear _confrere_, I have found in this
fragment nearly everything that is found in the human
body--cartilage, muscle, nerve, skin, hairs, glands,
blood, etc., and all this in a perfectly healthy and
normal state. It is not, then, a piece of a corpse which
you sent me, but a piece of a living man, whose humors
and tissues are in no way decomposed.

"With high consideration, yours,

"KARL NIBOR.

"PARIS, _July 30th, 1859._"

CHAPTER IX.

CONSIDERABLE OF A DISTURBAN