[ 156 ] 

 XXVI. Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



ROYAL. SOCIETY. 



[Continued from vol. xviii. p. 561.] 



May 13, TTIHE following papers were read, viz. — 



1841. _L 1. "Meteorological Observations for August, Sep- 

 tember, and October, 1840, taken on board H.M.S. Erebus and 

 Terror, by and under the direction of Capt. James Clark Ross, R.N., 

 Commander of the Antarctic Expedition." Presented by the Lords 

 Commissioners of the Admiralty, and communicated by the Pre- 

 sident of the Royal Society. 



2. " Hourly Meteorological Observations made at Plymouth, in 

 latitude 52° 36' 12", longitude in time 6 m 55 s east, on the 22nd of 

 March, 1841." By Arthur Utting, Esq. Communicated by Capt. 

 Edward Johnson, R.N., F.R.S. 



3. " Barometrical Observations taken at Naples at 9 a.m. on each 

 day during the months of January and February, 1841." By Sir 

 Woodbine Parish, K.C.H., F.R.S. Presented by direction of the 

 Council of the Royal Geographical Society, and communicated by 

 S. H. Christie, Esq., Sec. R.S. 



4. " Memoir of the case of a gentleman born blind, and success- 

 fully operated upon in the eighteenth year of his age ; with Physio- 

 logical Observations and Experiments." By J. C. August Franz, 

 M.D., M.R.C.S. Communicated by Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, Bart., 

 F.R.S. 



The young gentleman who is the subject of this memoir had been 

 affected from birth with strabismus of both eyes ; the right eye was 

 amaurotic, and the left deprived of sight by the opacity both of the 

 crystalline lens and of its capsule. At the age of seventeen, an ope- 

 ration for the removal of the cataract of the left eye was performed 

 by the author with complete success. On opening the eye for the 

 first time, on the third day after the operation, the patient described 

 his visual perception as being that of an extensive field of light, in 

 which everything appeared dull, confused, and in motion, and in 

 which no object was distinguishable. On repeating the experiment 

 two days afterwards, he described what he saw as a number of opake 

 watery spheres, which moved with the movements of the eye, but 

 when the eye was at rest remained stationary, and their margins 

 partially covering one another. Two days after this the same phe- 

 nomena were observed, but the spheres were less opake and some- 

 what transparent ; their movements were more steady, and they ap- 

 peared to cover each other more than before. He was now for the 

 first time capable, as he said, of looking through these spheres, and 

 of perceiving a difference, but merely a difference, in the surround- 

 ing objects. The appearance of spheres diminished daily ; they be- 

 came smaller, clearer, and more pellucid, allowed objects to be seen 

 more distinctly, and disappeared entirely after two weeks. As soon 

 as the sensibility of the retina had so far diminished as to allow the 



