100 



• KNOW^LEDGE 



[JCLY U, 1882. 



^'iven in terrestrial laboratories under very small pressures; 

 r.ut, whatever the density of the gaseous matter of the 

 chromosphere may be, there are facts which render it pro- 

 liable that tliere is a resisting medium within the coronal 

 area which increases in density as we descend from the 

 outt-r limit-s of the corona towards the photosphere. The 

 struL-turos in the lower parts of the corona are more curved 

 than the rays which extend into the outer parts of the 

 corona, as if" they had been acted upon and bent by cur- 

 rents in an atmosphere, and the contorted forms of some 

 of the irruption prominences also indicate the existence of 

 I resisting medium. Definite evidence with respect to the 

 . \istence of such a resisting atmosphere has been deduced 

 from observations made by Professor Young with respect 

 to the rate of projection of irruption prominences. See a 

 paper by Mr. Proctor,' published in the Monlh'i/ Xotices of 

 the Royal Astronomical Society for December, 1871. 



The comet oliserved during this eclipse is not the only 

 cometary body which has been observed in the neighbour- 

 hood of the corona daring an eclipse. The photographs 

 taken by Mr. Davis and Col. Tennant, during the eclipse 

 of 1S71, show an opaque nucleus, with dark concentric 

 structures partially surrounding it, which cut out the light 

 of the bright parts of the corona, and seem to have been 

 due to a small comet situated between the earth and the 

 corona. An account of these dark structures is given in 

 the ^fonlh(l| Xotia-1 for June, 1874. Professor Winnecke, 

 in describing the corona, observed during the eclipse of 

 ISCO, also speaks of a dark body which appears to have 

 lieen unconnected with the corona ; he describes it as a 

 parabolic dusky arc, which looked as if it was drawn with 

 sepia upon the brighter background of the corona. A 

 drawing of this curious body is given in the memoirs of the 

 Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, 7th Series, Vol. lY. 



THOUGHT-READING. 



Bv THE Editor. 



IN the cases last considered, the explanation may be sug- 

 gest<'d that some code of signals may have been arranged 

 "y which the proper answer was communicated to those 

 'jue-stioned. ThefoUowing cases arc free from this objection : — 

 " It will be well to give," writes Prof. Barrett, " a group of 

 results obtained when no member of the family was aware of 

 the .selected oVject Eleven times running we cho.se a card 

 at random, and on .six of th<-.se occasions one of the children 

 named the selected card (giving both suit and pips, or fully 

 de&ignating the court card) correctly at the first trial ; twice 

 the card was named correctly on the second trial ; and three 

 cases were failures. On none of these occasions was it even 

 remotely pos.'sibly for the child to obtain by any ordinary 

 means a knowledge of the card selected. Our own facial 

 •■xpre.s.sion was the only index open to her; and even if we 

 had not purposely looked as neutral as po.ssible, it is difficult 

 to imagine liow we could have unconsciously larried, .say, 

 the two of diamonds written on our foreheads. The 

 outline of results during the present investigation, which 

 extended over six days, stand as follows : — Altogether, 

 .382 trials were made. In the case of lett<.rs of the 

 alphal>et, of cards, and of numbers of two figures, the 

 chances against success on a first trial would naturally be 

 ■_'.'> to 1, 51 to 1, and 08 to 1, respectively ; in the case of 

 hiimames they would, of course, be indefinitrily greater. 

 Oards were far most frequently employed, and the odds in 

 their case maybe taken as a fair medium sample; according 

 to which, out of the whole series of 382 trials, the average 

 number of successes at the first attempt by an ordinary 



guesser would be 7 J. Of our trials, 127 were successes on 

 tlie first attempt, .50 on tlio second, 19 on the third, 

 making 202 in all. On most of the occasions of failure, 

 180 in number, second trials were made ; but in some ca-ses 

 the guesser professed inability, and declined to make more 

 than one, and in others we allowed three ; no trial beyond 

 the third was ever allowed. During the last day or two of 

 trial, after it had occurred to us to notice the point, we 

 found that of the failures to guess a card at the first trial, 

 those wrong both in suit and number were a small 

 minority. Our most .striking piece of success, when the 

 thing selected was divulged to none of the family, was five 

 cards running, named correctly on a first trial ; the odds 

 against this happening once in our scries were considerably 

 over a million to 1. Wc had altogether a good many 

 similar batches, the two longest runs being eight consecu- 

 tive successes, once with cards, and once with names ; 

 where the adverse odds in the former case were over 142 

 millions to 1, and in the latter something incalculably 

 greater. If we add to these results others obtained on 

 previous visits, it seems not too much to say that the 

 hypothesis of mere coincidence is practically excluded." 



"The exceptional nature of this inquiry," proceeds 

 Professor Barrett, "goes far to invalidate arguments 

 founded on character and demeanour ; and, on this head, 

 we will only state our conviction that any candid critic, 

 present during the whole coursie of the experiment, would 

 have carried away a far more vivid impression of their 

 genuineness than the bare printed record can possibly 

 convey. Of more real importance is the hyi)othesis of 

 exalted sensibility of the ordinary sense organs. We could 

 discover no indication of this in any of its known forms ; 

 but by way of precaution, as has been already stated, we 

 commonly avoided even whispering any word, number, or 

 name that we had selected ; and the position of the ex- 

 cluded child, when the door was opened, would in every 

 case have satisfied the most exacting critic. The explana- 

 tion which might be sought in unconscious indications 

 given by the sitters, and especially in the movement of the 

 lips, has been already adverted to. Coming as we did to 

 this investigation with consid(!rable previous experience of 

 the same kind, we were throughout strictly on our guard 

 against giving such indications ourselves ; the possibility of 

 their being given by the family was, of course, excluded 

 where the family were ignorant of the selected word or 

 thing ; and on the remaining occasions our perpetual 

 vigilant watch never detected a trace of anything of the 

 kind. The ab.solute docility of the children — both the 

 guesser and the others — in taking any position in the room 

 that wc indicated, was naturally an a.ssistanco to our pre- 

 cautions. It may be further mentioned that, on a pre- 

 vious visit made by one of us, the child called the 

 required name through the shut door, or from an 

 adjoining room, having thus been completely isolated 

 from the very beginning to the very end of the 

 experiment."* 



Other evidence of this sort will be considered further 

 on. At this stage it may be well to note the objection 

 raised by Professor Donkin. " The matter in question," 



• " Among the friends above roforrod to as having taken part in 

 thcBO inqniricH are IVofessor Balfonr Stewart and I'rofosaor A. 

 IJopkinHon, of Owen's Collogo. A communication lately received 

 by uB from them, embodying the results of their visits, and 

 written without any knowledge of the contents of this paper, states 

 f.'iots and instances criticisms as to the possible (or impossible) 

 relation to those facta of coincilence, collusion, iiiijhl, and hearing, 

 precisely similar to those we have given. Their experience waB 

 that ' in about half the cases the first guess was rif,'lil,, and in most 

 cases of mistake there was some marked point o£ similarity between 

 the object proposed and the thing guessed.' " 



