394 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



raising a tumbler in such a way that at the moment 

 it was a few inches above my mouth ; but whether to 

 examine its substance against the light, or for what 

 particular purpose, has escaped my recollection. Be 

 that as it may, the tumbler slipped from my fingers 

 and fell so that the edge struck against one of my 

 lower teeth. The fall was just enough to have broken 

 the tumbler (at least, against a sharp object like a 

 tooth), and I expected to have my mouth unpleasantly 

 filled with glass fragments and perhaps seriously cut. 

 However, though there was a sharp blow, the glass re- 

 mained unbroken. On examining it, I found that a 

 large drop of wax had fallen on the edge at the very 

 spot where it had struck my tooth, an indentation being- 

 left by the tooth. Doubtless the softening of the shock 

 by the interposition of the wax had just saved the glass 

 from fracture. In any case, however, the surprising 

 nature of the coincidence is not affected. On con- 

 sidering the matter it will be seen how enormous were 

 the antecedent odds against the observed event. It is 

 not an usual thing for a tumbler to slip in such a 

 way: it has not at any other time happened to me, 

 and probably not a single reader of these lines can 

 recall such an occurrence either in his own experi- 

 ence or that of others. Then it very seldom* happens, 

 I suppose, that a drop of wax 'falls on the edge of a 

 tumbler and there remains unnoticed. That two 

 events so unusual should be coincident, and that the 

 very spot where the glass struck the tooth should be 

 the place where the wax had fallen, certainly seems 



