470 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



I sat at her right hand, and a left-hand pocket, within 

 six inches of her person, contained a magnet. 



Our host here deprecated discussion, as it ** exhausted 

 the medium." The wonderful narratives were resumed; 

 but I had narratives of my own quite as wonderful. 

 These spirits, indeed, seemed clumsy creations, compared 

 with those with which my own work had made me famil- 

 iar. I therefore began to match the wonders related to me 

 by other wonders. A lady present discoursed on spiritual 

 atmospheres, which she could see as beautiful colors when 

 she closed her eyes. I professed myself able to see similar 

 colors, and, more than that, to be able to see the interior 

 of my own eyes. The medium affirmed that she could see 

 actual waves of light coming from the sun. I retorted 

 that men of science could tell the exact number of waves 

 emitted in a second, and also their exact length. The 

 medium spoke of the performances of the spirits on mu- 

 sical instruments. I said that such performance was 

 gross, in comparison with a kind of music which had 

 been discovered some time previously by a scientific man. 

 Standing at a distance of twenty feet from a jet of gas, 

 he could command the flame to emit a melodious note; 

 it would obey, and continue its song for hours. So loud 

 was the music emitted by the gas-flame that it might be 

 heard by an assembly of a thousand people. These were 

 acknowledged to be as great marvels as any of those of 

 spiritdom. The spirits were then consulted, and I was 

 pronounced to be a first-class medium. 



During this conversation a low knocking was heard 

 from time to time under the table. These, I was told, 

 were the spirits' knocks. I was informed that one knock, 

 in answer to a question, meant "No"; that two knocks 



