2 1 6 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



or berberry, had not suffered, nor could he hear that the 

 Pinus pinea had been killed, though he saw at Rome that 

 it had suffered severely. 



Mr. Bowman said that a Committee of the Ophthalmo- 

 logical Society (of which he was President) had examined 

 about 18,000 persons of all ordinary positions to test the 

 existence of colour blindness. They had found more or less 

 of it in 4-76 per cent, of the males and only 4 per cent, of 

 the females, red blindness being a little in excess of green 

 blindness, while total colour blindness was excessively rare. 

 Among those examined were about 8000 of the metropolitan 

 police, some soldiers, many public schools, including Eton, 

 with private schools ; also some special classes of persons. 

 Among 1679 Jewish children colour blindness was more 

 frequent than among others of the same age and state, but 

 it was principally red blindness. Among 707 children of the 

 Society of Friends colour blindness was above the average, 

 amounting in one school to 12 per cent, of the boys and 

 6 per cent, of the girls. This excess might perhaps be due 

 to interbreeding. The Secretary of the Committee, Dr. 

 Brailey, had taken the chief share of the investigation, which 

 was being continued and to which the attention of Govern- 

 ment would be drawn, because of its importance in regard 

 to those who might be employed for signalling. 



June ibth, 3o8th meeting. Dr. Carpenter gave an 

 account of the Falls of Niagara when visited by his son, 

 Mr. W. Lant Carpenter, in the first week of February last. 

 Their aspect had been greatly altered by the accumulation 

 of ice. When springs discharged into the gorge, icicles, 

 sometimes 70 or 80 feet long, had formed. The ice-moun- 

 tains built up on rocky foundations by the accumulation 

 of frozen spray were exceedingly high ; one of them, in 

 front of the American Falls, rising to within 20 feet of their 

 top. He was informed that an ice-cone of this kind in 

 the Yosemite valley had actually attained a height of 

 600 feet. On Feb. 8th he found the whole of the fall over 

 Table Rock completely frost-bound. Enormous icicles 

 hung from the rock above and mountains of frozen spray 



