138 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



" From shore to shore across the Atlantic Ocean runs a metallic 

 cable. By means of electric batteries, magnets and sparks, a message 

 is conveyed from one end of this to the other. Messages have been 

 sent so many times that the most sceptical can not doubt the fact. By 

 such means a wanderer in any part of the world may be found and 

 called home, or if need be, sent still further on. Most of us have seen 

 this done and all have heard of it. Because it has grown familiar it 

 seems real to us, and its mystery is dissipated. But why use the 

 metallic cable at all ? What occult power lurks in metal ? Why must 

 we work always on the material plane? Why not use the air? And 

 indeed the air has been used and with wonderful success. But let us 

 not stop here. Why not use the invisible ether, along which so many 

 forms of energy are propagated ? Why not use the boundless sympathy 

 of life ? In Europe there is a large species of snail which runs up and 

 down the cabbages feeding on their leaves and is very fond of its mate. 

 It too has been used in telegraphy. Leave your sweetheart in Italy 

 when you come back home but leave her with a large piece of card- 

 board and take another like it for yourself. On each of these write a 

 number of sentences of sentiment and affection — quotations from the 

 poets, the finest possible to your literary taste, Browning, Tennyson, 

 Wordsworth, or the latest topical song — any of these will do. Then 

 take for yourself one of a devoted pair of snails, leaving the other with 

 her. At an agreed moment (standard time, making allowances for 

 differences of longitude) place your snail upon the card and she will 

 do the same with hers. Your snail will creep to any sentiment you 

 choose as you direct it. Hers is left free in its movements, but it will 

 follow the same course that its mate has chosen. Thus the sweetest 

 messages can be sent across the ocean. The last word of the snail in 

 America, ' All's well,' or ' Non ti scordar di me/ can be made to echo 

 sweetly on a far-off shore. This is the Parasilinic Telegraph, no in- 

 vention of mine, but the actual work of an ingenious i psychic adept.' 



" But why use the snails ? Surely their cold slimy bodies are not 

 more forceful than the throbbing heart and eager brain of man. 

 Surely they are not more sensitive than his astral form. Let the snails 

 go. «They belong to the crude beginning of astral science. You have 

 only to sit in your room alone in darkness, and by intense thought and 

 irresistible volition you may set the whole ether of the world in pal- 

 pitation with your dreams and desires. 



" To your thought the c sensitive ' you love will respond. Her astral 

 brain will register your ether throbs. e It is my wish ' : that is enough 

 for her. But you can do more than that, if we may trust the records. 

 Your own astral body may be sent across the ocean on the tremulous 

 ether and it will appear to her in her dreams or as part of her realities. 

 While the absence of this body may be a slight inconvenience to you, 



