Sept, 5, 1889] 



NATURE 



439 



supposed to be seen at a distance of two miles. Take the 

 case of two steamers going in opposite directions at the 

 rate of twenty miles an hour. It follows that from the 

 very moment of those on board being aware of each 

 other's position, but three minutes will elapse before they 

 meet. Is not this little enough time to alter a course.'^ 

 And this is premising a clear atmosphere. Should the 

 night be hazy, the oil poor, the wick badly trimmed, or 

 the glass dirty, the distance at which the light can be seen 

 is lessened, and the time to altera course correspondingly 

 diminished. Add to this the presence of a colour-blind 

 or defective far-sighted "look-out" or officer, and there is 

 present every attribute for the accomplishment of those 

 terrible tales of the sea which year after year greet us 

 with an alarming regularity. The Times (February 5, 

 1889), in reporting the terrible collision which occurred in 

 the channel, in fine clear leeatker, in which both vessels 

 (s.s. Nereid and s. Killochan) went to the bottom in less 

 than five minutes, carrying to a watery grave twenty-three 

 men out of a total of forty-two, remarks : " All inquiries 

 respecting the cause of this disaster lead to the same con- 

 clusion, that it was due to one of those astounding errors 

 of judgment on the part of one or other of the navigators 

 which seem to defy all attempts at reasonable excuse." 

 Read in the light we suggest, and the cause is as clear as 

 daylight. 



The same may be said of the terrible collision, when, 

 again on a perfectly clear nighty the s.s. Douro and 

 the s.s. Yrurac Bat both went to the bottom with more 

 than two score of their living burden. And who can say 

 that the loss of the s.s. Ville du Havre, with its appalling 

 death-roll, was not directly due to the colour-blindness 

 of "look-out" or officer on one of the colliding vessels .'' 

 We know how the inquiry ended. The English Admiralty 

 decided that the English vessel was free from all blame, 

 and the French Admiralty declared that the French 

 vessel could not be in any way incriminated. But no one 

 thought of attributing the mistake to the very probable 

 one of colour-blindness. Now, what are the precautions 

 taken to guard against those dangers which the employ- 

 ment of "colour-blind'' and defective far-sighted sailors 

 renders possible ? We reply advisedly and after careful in- 

 quiry, "Practically none." It is true that twenty-two years 

 after Dr. Wilson had so graphically described these 

 dangers, the Board of Trade authorities awoke from their 

 long sleep of indifference, and said that they recognized 

 " the serious consequences which might arise from an 

 officer of any vessel being unable to distinguish the colour 

 of the lights and flags which were carried by vessels," 

 and they instituted " tests and regulations," the value of 

 which will be indicated by the following facts. The regu- 

 lations do not prevent colour-blind " look-outs,'' colour- 

 blind pilots, colour-blind A.B.'s, or colour-blind apprentices 

 remaining sailors to the end of their days. They do rot 

 prevent colour-blind first mates or colour-blind captains 

 and masters retaining their positions also to the end of 

 their days ; nay, more, they actually give colour-blind 

 officers certificates that they are not colour-blind. 



Should anyone doubt these grave statements, let him read 

 the Board of Trade Reports for 1885, 1887, and 1888. He 

 will find there that no less than forty-five officers rejected 

 for colour-blindness were eventually given unendorsed 

 certificates, which is identical to saying these men were 

 not colour-blind, and that they were perfectly capable of 

 taking charge of the lives of hundreds of helpless passen- 

 gers, and of property to ihe extent of thousands. Is not 

 this little less than a public scandal.'' We who know that 

 colour-blindness is congenital and incurable, know either 

 that these forty-five men were not colour-bhnd when re- 

 jected, or that they are colour-blind to-day. Which con- 

 tention is the more likely may be gathered from the fact 

 that, of these legalized non-colour-blind men, according to 

 the Board of Trade's own reports, four were unable to 



distinguish red from green, twenty-two more called the 

 colour red green, five others called the colour green 

 red, and the remainder made mistakes of a marked 

 character. 



The Board of Trade so-called "tests for the detection 

 of colour-blindness," viz. the requiring candidates to give 

 X\\& names of coloured cards, and lights shown them— tests 

 which are stated to be "sufificient to prevent anyone who 

 is more or less (!) colour-blind escaping detection by the 

 examiner"— maybe tests of a man's education in the names 

 of colours, but as tests of the colour sense, they are nottrust- 

 worthy, and tests which are not trustworthy are worse than 

 no tests at all. Practically, the " tests " are barely worth 

 the paper they are printed on. And the "regulations" 

 dealing with a colour-blind officer, should he be detected, 

 are of a like character, a snare and delusion. The public 

 and the shipowners believed, rightly or wrongly it matters 

 not, that the regulations were framed to absolutely keep 

 colour-blind officers out of the sea service. They do 

 nothing of the sort. With regard to the far-sight of a 

 sailor or officer, there are no tests at all ; a man may be 

 the subject of any of the various forms of eye-disease, may 

 have any degree of blindness, or may be so shortsighted 

 as to be unable to see distinctly more than a few inches in 

 front of his nose, and yet be at perfect liberty to be a sailor 

 to the end of his days, or to become an officer. Are the 

 public going to allow this grave condition of affairs to re- 

 main as they are ? We answer emphatically "No," and 

 we feel sure that when Dr. Farquharson brings the sub- 

 ject forward, the House of Commons will insist that the 

 Board of Trade authorities who have the duty and 

 privilege of providing for the safety of the travelling com- 

 munity of the first maritime nation of the world, will take, 

 even though thus late, such precautions as will insure to 

 the sea traveller immunity from those dangers which the 

 present employment of colour-blind and defective far- 

 sighted sailors renders possible. 



ST. ELM as FIRE ON BEN NEVIS} 



ST. Elmo's Fire as seen occasionally at the Ben Nevis 

 Observatory takes the form of jets of light on the 

 tops of all objects that stand any height above the general 

 level of the roof of the Observatory, such as the chimneys, 

 anemometers, lightning-rod, &c. In a very fine display 

 the tops of the objects are quite ablaze with the pheno- 

 menon, which then glows and hisses in brilliant tongues 

 of white and blue, from four to six, or even more, inches 

 in length. Nor is the phenomenon confined to these 

 objects alone in the finer displays, but if the observer 

 stands on the roof his hair, hat, pencil, &c., glow with it 

 as well, and when he raises a stick above his head the 

 stick has also a long flame at the top. Further, however, 

 than having a slight tingling in his head and hands he 

 suffers no inconvenience. The hissing is a very marked 

 characteristic of the phenomenon, being always heard 

 during ordinary displays, though in the feebler disp'ays, 

 when the light can barely be seen, it cannot be distin- 

 guished from the hissing of the wind and the snow drift. 

 On one occasion the sound was a very highly pitched 

 note. In the finer and even in ordinary displays St. 

 Elmo's Fire is an object of great beauty, and the stormy 

 character of the weather — namely, squally winds with 

 heavy showers of snow and hail, and with clouds of snow- 

 drift flying all around— heightens rather than diminishes 

 the effect, although at the same time it detracts from the 

 convenience of observing with advantage. 



Up till the summer of 1888 fifteen cases of St. Elmo's 



' Abstract cf a paper en "St. Elmo's Fire on Ben Nevis," by Angus 

 Rankin in the Journal cf the Scottish Meteorological Society, th!rd series, 

 No. V. 



