exception of yellow and green, which he frequently confounded when apart, but could distinguish when both were before him at the same time. Of all colours, grey produced the most grateful sensation; red, orange, and yellow, though they excited pain, were not in themselves disagreeable; while the effect of violet and of brown was exactly the reverse, being very disagreeable, though not painful. Brown he called an ugly colour; black produced subjective colours; and white gave rise to a profusion of musca volitantes. When geometrical figures of different kinds were offered to his view, he succeeded in pointing them out correctly, although he never moved his hand directly and decidedly, but always as if feeling with the greatest caution. When a cube and a sphere were presented to him, after examining these bodies with great attention, he said that he saw a quadrangular and a circular figure; and, after further consideration, described the one as being a square and the other a disc, but confessed that he had not been able to form these ideas until he perceived a sensation of what he saw in the points of his fingers, as if he really touched the objects. Subsequent experience shewed that he could not discriminate a solid body from a plane surface of a similar shape. Thus a pyramid placed before him, with one of its sides towards his eye, appeared as a plane triangle. Two months after the above-mentioned operation, another was performed on both eyes, for the cure of the congenital strabismus, by the division of the tendons of the recti interni muscles, which produced a very beneficial effect on the vision of the left eye; and even the right eye, which had been amaurotic, gained some power of perceiving light, and, from being atrophied, became more prominent. Still, it was only by slow degrees that the power of recognising the true forms, magnitudes, and situation of external objects, was acquired. In course of time, the eye gained greater power of converging the rays of light, as was shewn by the continually increasing capacity of distinct vision by the aid of spectacles of given powers. (Lancet, Aug. 14. 1840.) IV. Two Cases of Acquisitiveness contrasted. By RICHARD BEAMISH, Esq., F.R. S. With Illustrative Drawings. TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL. SANS SOUCI, PRESTBURY, CHELTENHAM, MY DEAR SIR,-In offering the accompanying drawings to the Phrenological Journal, I do so rather as a suggestion to VOL. XIV.-N. S. NO. XVI. A a |