on Muscular Motion. 
13 
both from inclination, and the urgent requests of his friends, 
in promoting philosophical inquiries. 
On the 31st of July, 1794, we were enabled to begin our ex- 
periments, for which the following apparatus was constructed. 
A thick board was fixed to a strong upright support, di- 
rectly opposite to the window of Mr. Ramsden's front room on 
the first floor, which looks up Sackville-street, at the distance 
of one foot from the window. In this board was a square hole, 
large enough to admit a person's face, the forehead and chin 
resting against the upper and lower bars, and the cheek against 
either of the sides, so that when the face was protruded, the 
head was steadily fixed by resting on three sides, and in this 
position the left eye projected beyond the outer surface, of the 
board. 
On the outside of the board, or that next the window, 
upon the left of the square hole, was fixed a microscope, so 
placed as to take into its field the lateral part of the front of 
the cornea, which projects beyond the eyelids. The micro- 
scope had not only a movement directly forwards, but by 
means of endless screws, had also a vertical and horizontal 
motion, without which the experiments could not have been 
made with any degree of precision. 
From the upper part of the square hole an horizontal brass 
beam projected towards the window, with joints, by which it 
could be lengthened or shortened, and at the end of this a brass 
plate was suspended, which admitted of being raised or de- 
pressed, so as to bring a small hole that had been drilled through 
it directly opposite to the eye. 
With this apparatus we began cur experiments; and I con- 
sider it as a fortunate circumstance that Sir Henry Englefield 
