The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-17 00:00:00

RACING FIXTURES FOR 1854.

The Jockey Club having determined to commence
their season on Easter Monday (April 17), the princi-
pal meetings—supposing the usual arrangements are ob-
served—will stand as under. Should the stewards, in
any instance, determine to vary the fixture, it will be
advisable, as a guide to others, to give us immediate
notice :

FEBRUARY.
Newton Spring 2 Lincoln Spring 14
I Derby Spring 8 Nottingham Spring 21
MARCH.
Warwick Spring 21
Catterick 27
Northampton 29
Abergavenny 30
IL.
Catterick Bridge 19
Abergavenny 2O
York Spring 25
Malton 97

Liverpool Spring 1
Doncaster Spring 7
Salisbury
Coventry Spring l4
AP

Croxton Park 4
Epsom Spring 6
Cheltenham Spring 12
Newmarket Craven 17

Newmarket F S
Chester Spring 9
Lothians & Edinburgh 11
Newmarket S S 16
Shrewsbury lB
Manchester
Ascot Heath.
Newcastle-on-Tyne 2O
Hampton 2l
Carlisle 26
JII.
Newmarket
Worcester 4
Lancaster 6
Mansfield ll
Liverpool_ 12
Ipswich 13

Lothians and EdinburghlB
Lewes l9
Bath 23
Liverpool Hunt Spring 24
30

Epsom-

UNE.

Bibury
Stockbridge ...
Ludlow
Winchester

Stourbridge
Stamford

Nottingham
Goodwood

AU(
Brighton
Brighton Club 4
Wolverhampton
Yarmouth 8
Reading
Odiham 9
North Staffordshire 9
Wolverhampton l4

Ripon

SEPT]
Warwick
Lichfield
Western Meeting 7
Rochester and Chatham 7
Doncaster 12
Pontefract 18

OCT
Chester Autumn 3
Yorkshire Union Hunt 5
Wrexham 5
Newmarket S 0 9

NOVE
Epsom Autumn 2
Closing prices :

UST.
Egham
York
Hereford
Eccles
Chelmsford
Derby
Plymouth
Lincoln
MBER.
Bedford
Leicester
Manchester Autumn
Lanark
Newmarket F 0
Northallerton
)BER.
Warwick Autumn
Caledonian Hunt
Newmarket H
Worcester Autumn .
MBER.
Cowbridge Hunt

STEEPLECHASES TO COME.
JANUARY.
Oundle (5) 17 Oswestry (2)
Westbury and Wilt-
shire (3) 25
FEBRUARY.
3 I Torquay
8 I Carmarthenshire

Newton (1)
Derby (2)..,

Liverpool (1)..
Beverley (1) ..

MARCH.
... 1 1 Birmingham

APRIL.
Liverpool Hunt Club . 1 Cheltenham
(Hoylake) (2) 8 1 Rothbury ...
NOVEMBER.
Cowbridge Hunt

..20
..25
..31

..20

..25
_2O
..28

..17
..17
..23

..26

..16
..21

..27

..18
..19

THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

JAN. 12. Colonel Sabine, ILA., vice-president, in the
chair.

A paper was read, entitled, " An inquiry into some
of the circumstances and principles which regulate the
production of pictures on the retina of the human eye,
with their measure of endurance, their colours and
changes." By the Rev. W. Scoresby, F.R.S. The
investigations of the author embrace three distinct cases
—the case of achromatic pictures, that of coloured pic-
tures of uncoloured objects, derived simply or mainly
from the influence of the light upon the eye, and that of
the spectra of coloured objects, together with certain
applications of the results obtained by other optical cha-
racteristics, determination, or phenomena. The gene-
ral mode of experiment employed in these researches
is described as the viewing of illuminated objects
with steady fixed gaze at a special point, and then de-
termining the impression on the retina by examining the
images developed with closed eyes. The time of view-
ing the objects varied from a momentary glance up to
half a minute, more rarely to a minute, and the mode
of eliciting the impression was primarily by closing the
eyelids into gentlest contact, whilst the head was kept
unmoved, and the eyelids steady in their original .direction.
Thus performed the experiment becomes very simple and
manageable, and the results, various as they are in colour
or depth of tint, are almost unfailingly elicited, and often
surprisingly curious and beautiful. Among the facts
arising from this series of investigations, the author no-
tices that, in viewing impressions on the retina with
closed eyes, all the pictures appear to occupy a position
externally, similar to the effect when the objects are
directly seen ; that the spectra derived from moderate or
strong degrees of transmitted light have prevalently the
character of transparency, and those from very low de-
grees, most ordinarily of opacity ; that although many
of the spectral phenomena observed by the author were
well known to be capable of elicitation in the ordinary
form of the experiment with the eyes open, yet the series
of investigations, as a whole, could not be so elicited'
nor was it possible by such form of experiment to analyse
and compare the phenomena whilst in progress of change,
which in the form he had adopted were usually exhibited
as plainly as if the spectra were the real and immediate
effects of ordinary direct vision ; and that such is the
precision, and such the certainty with which the pictures
are:ordinarily developed, after duly viewing any illumi-
nated object, so that the expected result, so far as the
eliciting of 'definite pictures is concerned, hardly ever
fails.