those who have had the good fortune to witness his experiments; and the
methods he employed deserve to be much more widely known.

It appears to me that a great mistake exists on the subject. It has been
adduced as one of those facts which prove the extraordinary acuteness of
the bodily senses of the individual,--a circumstance which, if it
were true, would add but little to his philosophical character; I am,
however, inclined to view it in a far different light, and to see in it
one of the natural results of the admirable precision of his knowledge.

During the many opportunities I have enjoyed of seeing his minute
experiments, I remember but one instance in which I noticed any
remarkable difference in the acuteness of his bodily faculties, either
of his hearing, his sight, or of his sense of smell, from those of other
persons who possessed them in a good degree. [This was at Mr. South's
observatory, and the object was, the dots on the declination circle of
his equatorial; but, in this instance, Dr. Wollaston did not attempt to
TEACH ME HOW TO SEE THEM.]

He never showed me an almost microscopic wire, which was visible to his,
and invisible to my own eye: even in the beautiful experiments he made
relative to sounds inaudible to certain ears, he never produced a tone
which was unheard by mine, although sensible to his ear; and I believe
this will be found to have been the case by most of those whose minds
had been much accustomed to experimental inquiries, and who possessed
their faculties unimpaired by illness or by age.

It was a much more valuable property on which the success of such
inquiries depended. It arose from the perfect attention which he could
command, and the minute precision with which he examined every object. A
striking illustration of the fact that an object is frequently not seen,
FROM NOT KNOWING HOW TO SEE IT, rather than from any defect in the organ
of vision, occurred to me some years since, when on a visit at Slough.
Conversing with Mr. Herschel on the dark lines seen in the solar
spectrum by Fraunhofer, he inquired whether I had seen them; and on my
replying in the negative, and expressing a great desire to see them,
he mentioned the extreme difficulty he had had, even with Fraunhofer's
description in his hand and the long time which it had cost him in
detecting them. My friend then added, "I will prepare the apparatus, and
put you in such a position that they shall be visible, and yet you sh