DESCRIPTION OF PLATE II.

Plate II. contains examples of more complicated Forms, which severally require so much minuteness of description that I am in despair of being able to do justice to them separately, and must leave most of them to tell their own story.

Fig. 34 is that of Mr. Flinders Petrie, to which I have already referred (p. 66).

Fig. 37 is by Professor Herbert McLeod, F.R.S.  I will quote his letter almost in full, as it is a very good example:—­

“When your first article on visualised numerals appeared in Nature, I thought of writing to tell you of my own case, of which I had never previously spoken to any one, and which I never contemplated putting on paper.  It becomes now a duty to me to do so, for it is a fourth case of the influence of the clock-face. [In my article I had spoken of only three cases known to me.—­F.  G.] The enclosed paper will give you a rough notion of the apparent positions of numbers in my mind.  That it is due to learning the clock is, I think, proved by my being able to tell the clock certainly before I was four, and probably when little more than three, but my mother cannot tell me the exact date.  I had a habit of arranging my spoon and fork on my plate to indicate the positions of the hands, and I well remember being astonished at seeing an old watch of my grandmother’s which had ordinary numerals in place of Roman ones.  All this happened before I could read, and I have no recollection of learning the numbers unless it was by seeing numbers stencilled on the barrels in my father’s brewery.

“When learning the numbers from 12 to 20, they appeared to be vertically above the 12 of the clock, and you will see from the enclosed sketch that the most prominent numbers which I have underlined all occur in the multiplication table.  Those doubly underlined are the most prominent [the lithographer has not rendered these correctly.—­F.  G.], and just now I caught myself doing what I did not anticipate—­after doubly underlining some of the numbers, I found that all the multiples of 12 except 84 are so marked.  In the sketch I have written in all the numbers up to 30; the others are not added merely for want of space; they appear in their corresponding positions.  You will see that 21 is curiously placed, probably to get a fresh start for the next 10.  The loops gradually diminish in size as the numbers rise, and it seems rather curious that the numbers from 100 to 120 resemble in form those from 1 to 20.  Beyond 144 the arrangement is less marked, and beyond 200 they entirely vanish, although there is some hazy recollection of a futile attempt to learn the multiplication table up to 20 times 20.”

[Illustration:  PLATE II. Examples of Number Forms.]