348 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. XT. 



the galley oar again, I send you some account of our 

 doings. . . . My paper T [to the Chemical Section] will not 

 at present be published even in abstract ; but I believe it 

 to contain some curious, novel, and important observations 

 on the ancient history of the Air-Pump. I had the pleasure 

 of seeing Faraday, Graham, Christison, Gassiot, Robinson, 

 William Thomson, De La Rue, besides others, listening 

 with interest, and we had profitable talk about it after. To 

 dispose of myself : I read to the Natural History Section 

 a brief paper on the Gymnotus, 2 as used by the Indians at 

 the present day to give shocks. Two of the Gymnoti are 

 coming alive to me next summer. 



" In the Statistical I gave them a blast about Colour- 

 Blindness, 3 preliminary to moving for a committee to 

 inquire into the statistics of the question on a large scale. 

 I have got the committee, and io/. to carry out the scheme. 

 In the Chemical Section I also read a paper for Walter 

 Crum, and one for James Young. Altogether I was more 

 than satisfied with my share in Association work, and 

 fulfilled every personal project that took me there. . . . 



" My lungs warned me, by some ugly bleeding early in 

 the week, to be careful, so that I did not go to Sir R. 

 Murchison's Lecture, or to the first Conversazione. The 

 second lecture by Robinson of Armagh was a great treat, 

 or rather, I should say, the experiments were. They were 

 exhibitions of the electric spark on the largest scale, in- 

 cluding all the kinds of electric light, the apparatus being 

 brought from London, and of the finest kind. . . . The 

 beauty of some of the lights is so great, that I could not 



1 " On some of the Stages which led to the Invention of the Modern 

 Air-Pump." " Report of Brit. Assoc. 1859," p. 89. 



2 " On the Employment of the Electrical Eel, Gymnotus Electricus, 

 as a medical shock machine by the natives of Surinam." Ibid, p. 581. 



3 "On the Statistics of Colour-Blindness." Ibid. p. 228. 



