colour may. And thus it was with this young gentleman, who, though he knew these colours asunder in a good light, yet, when he saw them after he was couched, the faint ideas he had of them before were not sufficient for him to know them by, afterwards, and therefore he did not think them the same which he had before known by those names. Now, scarlet he thought the most beautiful of all colours, and of others, the most gay were the most pleasing; whereas, the first time he saw black it gave him great uneasiness; yet after a little while, he was reconciled to it; but, some months after, seeing by accident a Negro woman, he was struck with horror at the sight. When he first saw, he was so far from making any judgment about distance, that he thought all objects whatsoever touched his eyes (as he expressed it,) as what he felt did his skin, and thought no objects so agreeable as those which were smooth or regular, though he could form no judgment of their shape or guess what it was in any object that was pleasing to him. He knew not the shape of any thing, or any one thing from another however different in shape or magnitude; but, upon being told what things were, the form of which he before knew from feeling, he would carefully observe, that he might know them again; but having too many objects to learn at once, he forgot many of them; and (as he said) at first he learned to know, and again forgot, a thousand things in a day. One particular only (though it may appear trifling) I will relate: having often forgot which was the cat and which the dog, he was ashamed to ask, but catching the cat (which he knew by feeling,) he was observed to look at her steadfastly, and then setting her down, said to puss, "I shall know you another time.' He was very much surprised that those things which he had liked best did not appear most agreeable to his eyes, expecting those persons would appear most beautiful that he loved most, and such things to be most agreeable to his sight that were so to his taste. We thought he soon knew what pictures represented which were shewn to him, but we found afterwards we were mistaken; for, about two months after he was couched, he discovered at once that they represented solid bodies, when to that time he considered them as partycoloured plains, or surfaces diversified with variety of paint; but even then he was no less surprised, expecting the pictures would feel like the things they represented, and was amazed when he found those parts, which by their light and shadow appeared now round and uneven, felt only flat like the rest, and asked which was the lying sense, feeling or seeing? Being shewn his father's picture in a locket at his mother's LI

VOL. III.

saw.

watch, and told what it was, he acknowledged a likeness, but was vastly surprised, asking how it could be that a large face could be expressed in so little room? Saying, it should have seemed as impossible to him as to put a bushel of any thing into a pint. At first he could bear but very little light, and the things he saw he thought extremely large; but, upon seeing things larger, those first seen he conceived less, never being able to imagine any lines beyond those he The room he was in, he said, he knew to be but part of the house, yet he could not conceive that the whole house could look bigger. Before he was couched, he expected little advantage from seeing, worth undergoing an operation for, except reading and writing; for, he thought, he said, he could have no more pleasure in walking abroad than he had in the garden, which he could do safely and readily. And even blindness, he observed, had this advantage, that he could go any where in the dark much better than those that can see and, after he had seen, he did not soon lose this quality, nor desired a light to go about the house in the night. He said, every new object was a new delight; and the pleasure was so great that he wanted ways to express it. But his gratitude to his operator he could not conceal, never seeing him for some time without tears of joy in his eyes, and other marks of affection; and, if he did not happen to come at any time when he was expected, he would be so grieved that he could not forbear crying at his disappoint

ment.

A year after first seeing, being carried upon Epsom Downs, and observing a large prospect, he was exceedingly delighted with it, and called it a new kind of seeing. And now, being lately couched of his other eye, he says that objects at first appeared large to this eye, but not so large as they did at first to the other; and, looking upon the same object with both eyes, he thought it looked about twice as large as with the first-couched eye only, but not double, that we can any ways discover.

1796, Aug.

JOHN ROMLEY, 1731,

Haxey, Lincolnshire.

XCVI. Feasting on Live Flesh.

MR. URBAN,

MR. Bruce's account of the Abyssinians feasting upon live flesh is well known; but, I believe, it is not so well known

that Mr. Bruce's countrymen, the Scotch, were once accustomed to eat their beef in the same savage manner. The authority for this is a quarto pamphlet, intituled, "A modern Account of Scotland; being an exact description of the Country, and a true Character of the People and their Manners. Written from thence by an English Gentleman. Printed in the Year 1670." Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. VI. p. 121. At p. 126 is the following passage: "Their cruelty descends to their beasts, it being a custom, in some places, to feast upon a living cow, which they tie in the middle of them, near a great fire, and then cut collops of this poor living beast, and broil them on the fire, till they have mangled her all to pieces; nay, sometimes they will only cut off as much as will satisfy their present appetites, and let her go till their greedy stomachs call for a new supply; such horrible cruelty, as can scarcely be paralleled in the whole world."

This I believe; and that it never would have been paralleled if Mr. Bruce had not travelled into Abyssinia.

Your readers will probably imagine, and I think they will be right in the idea, that a great part of this modern account of Scotland is burlesque. But, allowing that to be the case, there is a wonderful coincidence between the Scotch feast, and that which Mr. Bruce declares he was present at in Abyssinia.

1796, Oct.

R.

XCVII. Useful Method of Flooring at Bengal.

MR. URBAN,

RESIDING in a house which is built on a soil full of springs, and on that account without cellars, and the flooring being raised about a foot from the ground, which renders it exceedingly cold and uncomfortable, owing to the air admitted under it through air-holes; the following simple method of flooring used in Bengal by the natives, where there are no chimnies, and where this kind of flooring keeps the house dry, and serves in every part of it as an hearth for cooking, occurred to my recollection; and, as I am certain that it would have obviated all the inconveniences I complain of, had it been adverted to in the flooring of my house, it may possibly be of utility to others who may hereafter build in springy ground. At any rate, nothing is lost by the

communication to yourself, who can but judge whether or not to let it go farther. The area of the house or room to be floored is made perfectly level; unglazed earthen posts, about a foot high and large bellied, are placed close together over the whole surface, mouth downwards; the hollow parts, round the necks and tops of the pots, are filled up with charcoal pounded fine (nothing being so dry or so difficult to make damp,) and the terrace over the whole is formed of brick-dust and lime, well worked, and made as hard as possible. I never knew of such an hearth giving way; and have been most sensible of its utility in keeping off dampness.

1797, Jan.

GHUR.

XCVIII. Principal Cause of Smoky Chimnies, with a Remedy.

MR. URBAN,

I DO not know of a much greater domestic inconvenience than a smoky chimney, nor of any subject that has given rise to a greater number of unsuccessful experiments; which is, indeed, most likely to be the case, where the trials are made with so little regard to any philosophical principle, and with so much caprice and random fancy as those made on chimnies, as well in their first formation as their subsequent various alterations.

Dr. Franklin, in his "Observations on smoky Chimnies,” has very judiciously distinguished their separate and distinct defects or diseases, and has given a mode of cure applicable to the peculiar complaint, and which has been approved of by repeated experiments; and, indeed, his work has been the foundation of some late judicious modes of treating the defects of chimnies. But, notwithstanding all that has been written upon the subject, and though a chimney may be properly constructed, yet so much depends upon servants making fires, that it seems necessary to say something on that head.

A bad chimney is always the worst when it is first lighted, and a good chimney is often, by the improper method of making fires, made to appear a bad one until it is sufficiently heated in the inside, as is very obvious to those who by rising early have an opportunity of seeing servants light their fires; for, though their parlours may be in trim order

to receive the lady of the house and her family at breakfast, it is not till after the room has been first filled with clouds of smoke, the effects of which have been removed by opening the windows and doors, and frequent dusting and wiping the furniture, which often, where chimnies are in themselves really good, endure this daily great injury.

The common method of making a coal-fire is, to rake with a poker the dust and lighter ashes that have been left in the grate the preceding day, leaving a considerable quantity of cinders to be the basis of the intended fire; upon this are laid the shavings, or chips of wood or sticks, keeping the most combustible the undermost, to be lighted by a candle; upon these the coals are laid, by putting the smaller-sized with the hand in decent order, crowned with large ones; at the back of which all the remaining contents of the coal-box are promiscuously thrown. The whole is then lighted: but, as any person might sit an hour upon it without injury, no heat is communicated to the chimney till a great part of the inside of the fire is burnt; in the mean time, the smoke in thick volumes rolls, with most seeming perverseness, into the room and other parts of the house, till such time as some heat, being communicated to the chimney, makes it, what is vulgarly called, draw. This grievance is so common, that there is hardly a house to be met with but it is found necessary to open doors and windows in a morning, to clear it of smoke.

Το

Wherever a chimney draws well after the first fire, it is as good an one as can be desired, and the fault lies in making the fire; and it is unwise to try any experiments, or make alterations, lest you make a good chimney a bad one. cure this, I have tried various ways of making a fire; but none have answered so well as the following, which is in reality only reversing the common mode. The grate is entirely emptied of its contents, and the coals are thrown promiscuously (without having very large ones amongst them) to the height of two or three bars, according to the depth of the grate; upon which the wood is laid, and the cinders are placed at the top, and the fire is lighted by a candle in the usual way; or, if convenient, by a fire-shovel of wellburnt cinders from another fire, upon which the cold cinders must be immediately thrown.

The smoke is very inconsiderable, and goes directly up the chimney; and the cinders are very soon heated. In time the upper surface of the coal takes fire; and, as the smoke issues out,it is arrested by the porous quality of the