The action of the air by drying the arteries gives them a colour of a reddish yellow, very deep and even blackish in the great trunks, more clear in the smaller ones. Thus dried, the arterial texture is almost as hard as the cartilages in the same state, extremely brittle, breaking in the great trunks with a crackling noise, that is not perceived in any other animal texture. It is especially in this preparation, that we see how much the cellular covering of the arteries differs from their peculiar texture. This covering remains pliable; it is whitish when raised up separately. Immersed again in water, the arteries assume in part their natural arrangement. In drying, the arterial texture loses but very little of its thickness; this is a phenomenon that distinguishes it from most of the other textures. It arises from the small quantity of fluid that is contained between its layers, a circumstance that appears to be owing to the absence of the cellular texture. In opening the arterial layers, the kind of dryness they exhibit is remarkable, when compared with the moisture in which the muscular fibres are immersed. Exposed wet among other organs to the action of the air, the arteries putrefy with great difficulty. Their texture resembles in this respect that of the cartilages, the fibro-cartilages, &c.; it is like them for some time almost incorruptible; when it is left to putrefy by itself, it gives out an odour much less fœtid than that of other textures; there appears to be less ammonia disengaged from it. The absence of fœtor is also very remarkable in the water in which the arteries have been macerated, entirely separated from every neighbouring texture. By comparing this water with that in which muscles have been macerated, the difference is striking. An evident proof of the resistance of the arteries to putrefaction and maceration, is what is observed in the viscera, which have been a long time macerated or which are putrid, as in the liver, the spleen, the kidnies, &c. In both cases, in the first especially, these viscera are reduced to a kind of pulp; the arteries however have preserved their texture still hard, amid this general softening. By removing carefully the putrid substance, we can follow them even to their final ramifications. This method of seeing the arteries is easy, whether they are filled by injection, or left empty. In the living animal, these vessels are also infinitely less susceptible of putrefaction than the skin, the cellular texture, &c. An artery often passes through a mortified part without undergoing any alteration from it; this is frequently seen in gun-shot wounds.