38 ■ MEMOIE OF ALFKED SMEE. [Chap. V 



CHAPTEE V. 



1848 TO 1849. 



' The Eye,' fourth book — Smee's optometer — Stnee's horizontal fish-tail burners 

 — Sheet of Accidents and Emergencies — Royal Society : on its reducing its 

 number of Fellows — Personal appearance of Alfred Smee — Love of his family 

 — His powers of abstraction — His untidiness — Indifference to dress — ^Hia 

 walk — Jingling keys — Quick temper — Quick in action — Sensitive to a slight 

 — Not jealous — Impatient of opposition — Disliked arguments — Expected 

 others to have the same quickness of apprehension as himself — Works for 

 others — Disposition — Never feared responsibility — His dislike of routine 

 work — His charity — His genial and social disposition — Loved society, but 

 disliked the London season being in summer — His favourite authors. 



On the 16th and 23rd of March, 1848, Alfred Smee gave a course 

 of two lectures on Vision at the London Institution ; he also gave 

 other lectures at the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital, which 

 were afterwards incorporated in a book, and published under the 

 title of 'The Eye in Health and Disease.' The book had an 

 extensive sale and was translated into French. In it there is an 

 account of one of his clever contrivances for the adaptation of 

 glasses for impaired, aged, or defective sight. The optometer — for 



Fig. 3. Optometer. 



such is the name of the instrument — is most simple in its con- 

 struction, yet most useful, and it should invariably be employed 

 by the optician before spectacles are sold to the applicant. The 

 instrument consists of a convex lens to which a graduated scale 

 is affixed of such a length, that convergent, parallel, and diver- 

 gent rays may be brought within a reasonable scope, and thus 

 the eye may be tested by it. In this book is also an account of 

 a novel kind of photometer, which he designed to judge of the 



