their shape. These being objects which he had not been accustomed 

 even to feel, he was still learning them as a child learns to read : he 

 could distinguish the angles, and could count their number in suc- 

 cession ; but at the expiration of the third week, he could tell these 

 forms nearly as readily as their colour. 



The inferences which Mr. Home draws from these, are, that when 

 the eye, before the cataract is removed, has only been capable of 

 discerning light, without any power of distinguishing colours, then 

 objects, after its removal, appear to touch the eye, and there is no 

 knowledge of their outline, agreeably to the observations made by 

 Mr. Cheselden. But when the eye has previously been able to 

 distinguish colours, it has then also some knowledge of distances, 

 though not of outline, but will soon attain this also, as happened in 

 Mr. Ware's cases. 



In a practical view, these cases confirm what has been laid down 

 by Mr. Pott and by Mr. Ware, with regard to cataracts, in being 

 generally soft, and in recommendation of couching as the operation 

 which is best adapted for removing them. 



Observations on the Structure of the different Cavities which constitute 

 the Stomach of the Whale, compared with those of ruminating Ani- 

 mals, with a View to ascertain the Situation of the digestive Organ. 

 By Everard Home, Esq. F.R.S. Read February 12, 1807. [Phil. 

 Trans. 1807, p. 93.] 



Mr. Home, having in a former paper communicated his observa- 

 tions upon the stomachs of ruminating animals, gives the present 

 account of that organ in the whale tribe, to show that it forms a link 

 in the gradation towards the stomach of truly carnivorous animals. 



The Delphinus delphis of Linnaeus, the bottle-nosed porpoise, 

 called by Mr. Hunter the bottle-nosed whale, having been brought 

 ashore alive by some fishermen at Worthing, Mr. Home took the 

 opportunity of examining the structure of its stomach, and discovered 

 a resemblance between the second, third, and fourth cavities in the 

 whale, and the different parts of the fourth cavity in the camel and 

 bullock, which appeared to throw some light upon their uses, as well 

 as upon digestion in general. 



The oesophagus in this porpoise is very wide : it has a number of 

 longitudinal folds, and is lined with a strong cuticle, which is con- 

 tinued throughout the first stomach. This stomach lies in the direc- 

 tion of the oasophagus, without any contraction to mark its origin, 

 and bears a strong resemblance in shape to a Florence flask. The 

 coats of its cavity are firm, and are surrounded by a strong muscular 

 covering. 



The orifice leading to the second stomach is at right angles to the 

 first, and at a small distance only from the oesophagus : the canal 

 from thence into the second stomach is three inches long, and opens 

 into it by a projecting orifice two inches and a half in diameter, at 

 which the cuticular covering of the preceding parts terminates. 



