1895! SOME NEW BOOKS. 53 



phoenix, in fact the bill. After some search Owen was able to demon- 

 strate to the unspeakable one that the bowl was in reality composed 

 of the beak of a horn-bill. " The head and beak were brought into 

 my study, and handed to the Oriental. He examined it very deftly, 

 comparing the beak with the bowl, and then exclaimed, with 

 astonishment and reverence, ' God is great ! This surely is the 

 bird ! ' " The surprised Turk proved to be " Mahommed Abu Said, 

 Chief Spoon and Ladle Maker to the Commander of the Faithful." 

 The subject of this memoir was largely enabled to do the vast amount 

 of work which he accomplished by his great powers of concentration. 

 This, however, was by no means confined to scientific matters, as 

 the following anecdote shows. One day, " after having heard a 

 lecture of Whewell's, he went on to the club, and took up Thackeray's 

 ' Vanity Fair ' to read. He became so deeply absorbed in the book 

 that he sat on, oblivious of the fact that everyone else had disappeared 

 one by one. He was also apparently deaf to coughs and hints of 

 attendants, etc. At last, in desperation, the men came forward and 

 began to take away the lamps. Then, having looked at his watch 

 and found it considerably past 2 a.m., he rushed wildly out of the 

 club, and, like a scientific Cinderella, left his umbrella and great coat 

 behind." It will be inferred from the short notice which we give 

 here that the Rev. Richard Owen's biography of his grandfather 

 teems with interesting matter. It should have a wide, circle of 

 readers. 



Organised Imbecility. 



Apparitions and Thought-Transference : an Examination of the Evidence for 

 Telepathy. By Erank Podmore, M.A. With numerous illustrations. London: 

 Walter Scott, 1894. Price 3s. 6d. 



This little volume, which is advertised with the sub-title, "The 

 Communication of Sensations, Ideas, and Emotions otherwise than 

 by the Known Senses," treats modern "spookery" with all the gravity 

 befitting a volume in the " Contemporary Science Series." 



Students of the longer established sciences are supposed, for the 

 most part, to set aside with undue levity the propositions and argu- 

 ments of the exponents of this fin-de-siech pursuit. It is pleasant, 

 therefore, to find ourselves in substantial agreement with an important 

 statement made by Mr. Podmore in his introductory chapter. " The 

 evidence, of which samples are presented in the following pages, is as 

 yet hardly adequate for the establishment of telepathy as a fact in 

 Nature, and leaves much to be desired for the elucidation of the laws 

 under which it operates." 



We differ, however, from the author as to the advisability of his 

 suggestion that " any contributions to the problem, in the shape either 

 of accounts or experiments, or of recent records of telepathic visions 

 and similar experiences " should be sent to the Society for Psychical 

 Research, for notwithstanding the great ability of several of the 

 leading members of that society, we take it as proved that the society 

 has shown itself unable to understand the nature of scientific evidence 

 and the conditions of scientific experiment. 



The evidence here presented rests upon the authority of persons 

 falling into three classes. The first set conceal themselves under 

 initials. Here, for instance, in this book are " Miss A.," " Mrs. B.," 

 " Mrs. C." and " Mrs. G.," " Miss X.," "Miss Y.," and " Mrs. Z.," 

 " Mr. J.," " Mr. J. T." " Dr. N.," and " Dr. F.," who have played 



