EYE-MEMORY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 7, 8 January 1881, Page 4

EYE -MEMORY.

Look steadily at a bright obj ct, keep the eyes immovably on it for a short time, an<l then close them. An image of the ol jeet remains ; it becomes, in fact, visible to tbe closed eyee. The vividness ood duration of such impressions vary considerably with different individuals, and the power of retaining (hern may be cultivated. Besides this sort of retinal image thus impressed, thero is another kind of visual image that may bo obtained by an effort of memory. Certain adepts at mental arithmetic use the "mind's eye " as a substitu te for elate and pencil by holding in visual memory pictures of the figures upon which they are operating, and Moae of their results, Au eccentric old man once lived at • Kilbury Priory, where he surrounded himself with curious furniture reputed to have originally belonged to Cardinal Wolsey, and which he bequeathed to the Q ieen at his death. He was the then celebrated, but now forgotten, " Memory Thompson," who in his earlier daya was a town traveller for a brewery (if I remember rightly), and wbo trained himself to tbe performance of wonderful feats of eye-memory. He could close his. eyes snd picture within him elf a panorama of Oxford street and other parts of London, in which picture every inscription over every ebop was so perfect BDd reliable that he could describe and certify to the names aud occupations of shopkeepin? inhabitants of all the houses of these streets at certain dates, when Post Office Directories were not as they now are. Although Memory Thompson is forgotten, bis special faculty is just now receiving some attention, and it ia proposed to specially cultivate it in elementary schools by placing objects before the pupils for a given time, then takiog them away, and requiring the pupil to draw tbem. That suoh a faculty exists, and may be of great servioe ie unquestionable. Systematic efforts to educate it if successful, will do good service to the rising generation ; and, even should the proposed training afford smaller results than its projectors anticipate, the experiments, if carefully made and registered, cannot fail to improve our knowledge of mental physiology. We are told that tbe " second-sight trick " practised so successfully by Houdin and bis son was done by cultivating this faculty. I suspect, however, tbat Houdin's confidential accounts of his training of bimßelf and son in acquiring thus the art of visual memory 1 striotly professional. The second-sight trick, as I have seen it done, is performed qaite differently, the objects > described never having been seen at all 1 by the person describing them, but being under the eye of the questioner. It depends on a very skilful traming of questions which convey information through a series of predetermined signals, demanding months and even years ' of continual practice to carry out. 1 When a conjuror takea you into his 1 confidence, and explains the prinoiple ' upon wbich one of bis best tricks is ' done, you may take it for granted that he is practising upon you the funds* 1 raentable principle of all his tricks, viz., that of misdirecting your attention. 5 It he talks about the machinery of his ' automaton, tallowa you lo discover that " he wes once apprenticed to a watob--5 maker, aod carefully winds up the ma--1 ohinery in the box under tbe figure 1 before it begins to per form ? you may

safely conclude that tbere is do machinery there beyond what is necessary to produce the ostentatious clicking tbat accompanies tbe winding.