HENSLOW, George. "Reversals of Memory" in Nature, July 15, 1880, short note on page 241. In the original wrappers, removed from a larger bound volume. Fine copy otherwise. $150
[Henslow: "Clergyman, teacher, and botanist. BA, Cambridge (Christ’s College), 1858. Curate of Steyning, 1859–61; of St John’s Wood Chapel, 1868–70; of St James’s Marylebone, 1870–87. Headmaster at Hampton Lucy Grammar School, Warwick, 1861–4; at the Grammar School, Store Street, London, 1865–72. Lecturer in botany at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, 1866–80."--Darwin Correspondence Project. Remembered as "the Cambridge mentor" of Charles Darwin.
- Reversals by Memory "I SHOULD much like to know if it be a common thing for people to reverse the positions of objects in the memory. An artist, on returning from the National Gallery, painted the Timiraire from memory. Taking his picture to compare it with Turner's, he found to his surprise that he had reversed the positions of the ship, tug, sun, &c. His daughter tells me that if she wants to refer to a passage in a book she as often looks for it on a left-hand page, while it is on a right-hand page, or vice versa. Another lady, on looking at a wood-engraving made from a sketch which she had seen some time previously, asked if the engraver had not reversed everything? These are the only cases known to me. Is the following universally true? — Let some one write with a blunt instrument the letter P on your forehead, or anywhere on the front half of the head from ear to ear, and the P must be written backwards for you to "see" it correctly. But if it be written anywhere at the back of the head, it must be written correctly both for you and the writer to read it. The change takes place abruptly in a line over each ear." --the Victorian Review, vol 5, "Outposts of teh Most Advanced Physics", p 667, by H. Mortimer Franklyn, editor.
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