16-2 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Aug. i, 1882. 



iudeed, well known to fame), as to make the simple re- 

 jection of Buch accounts a very unsatisfactory way of deal- 

 ing with the evidence. 



Ilespecting these experiences, the editor of the Xine- 

 UfHth Century formulate<l thirteen years ago in the Spec- 

 taUjr the following attempt at an explanation : — 



" Let it l>e granted that whensoever any action takes 

 place ia the liraiii, a ehemieal change of its sulistancc takes 

 place also ; or, in other words, an atomic movement 

 occurs. .... 



" Let it be also granted that there is, dilfused through- 

 out all known space, and permeating the interspaces of all 

 iHjdies — solid, fluid, or gixseous— a universal, impalpaMe, 

 elastic 'ether,' or material medium of surpassing and incon- 

 ceivable tenuity 



" But if these two assumptions be granted, and the jmo- 

 seut condition of discovery seems to warrant them, should 

 it not follow that no brain action can take place without 

 creating a wave or undulation in the ether 1 for the move- 

 ment of any solid particle submerged in any such medium 

 must create a wave. 



"If so, we should have as one result of brain action 

 an undulation or wave in the circumambient, all-embracing 

 ether — we should have what I will call Brain- Waves pro- 

 ceeding from every brain when in action. 



"Each acting, thinking brain, then, would become a 

 centre of undulations transmitted from it in all directions 

 through space. . . . Why do not such undulations, when 

 meeting with and falling upon duly sensitive substances, 

 as if upon the sensitised paper of the photographer, pro- 

 duce impressions, dim portraits of thoughts, as undula- 

 tions of light produce portraits of objects 1 



" The sound-wave passes on through myriads of bodies, 

 .iiid among a million makes but one thing sound or shake 

 to it ; a sympathy of structure makes it sensitive, and it 

 alone. A voice or tone may pass unnoticed by ten 

 -thousand ears, but strike and vibrate one into a madness 

 of recollection. ]n the same way the brain-wave of 

 l>amon, passing through space, producing no perceptible 

 •■iFect, meets somewhere with the sensitised and sympa- 

 thetic brain of Pythias, falls upon it, and fills it with a 

 .familiar movement The brain of Pythias is affected as 

 by a tone, a perfume, a colour with which he has been used 

 to associate his friend; he kno«s not how or wh}-, but 

 Damon comes into his thoughts, and the things concerning 

 him by association live again. If the last brain-waves of 

 life l*e fre<piently intensest — convulsive in their energ}-, as 

 the firefly's (lying flash is its brightest, and as oftentimes 

 the "lightening before death" would seem to show — we 

 may, perhaps, seem to see how it is that apparitions at the 

 hour of death are far more numerous and clear than any 

 other ghost stories. 



" Such oblique methods of communicating between brain 

 and brain (if such there be) would probably but rarely 

 take clTect. The influences woidd be too minute and 

 Kubtle to tell upon any brain already preoccupied by action 

 of its own, or on any but brains of extreme, perhaps 

 morbid susceptibility. But if, indeed, there be radiating 

 from living brains any such streams of vibratory move- 

 ments (as, surely, there must be), these may well ha^e an 

 effect even without speech, and be, perhaps, the modux 

 "ft^aruli of "the little flash, the mystic hint" of the poet 

 — of that dark and htrange sphere of half experiences which 

 the world hai never br-en without. . . . 



" No doubt atomic movements, causing waves in space, 

 THUst start from other pa'ta of the body as well as from 

 thf brain. . . . But the question here is simply limited to 

 how brain are affected by the movements of other brains ; 

 ;ust as the question of how on", pendulum will make other 



pendulums swing with it is a fair mechanical inquiry by 

 itself, though doubtless other questions would remain as to 

 how the movement of the pendulum would aflect all other 

 material bodies, as well as pendulums, in the same room 

 with it^' 



Of course, the difiiculty in this, as in all other attempts 

 at explaining these occasional and extraordinary expe- 

 riences, is, that there are no known physical laws which 

 would account for the supposed physical action, and that 

 as yet there seems no possibility of any experimental re- 

 searches on either of the brain-powers supposed to be 

 involved — the power of originating the suggested brain- 

 waves, or the power of receiving them. Then, again, it is 

 ditlicult to understand why, if the theory bo true, the 

 observed instances are .so few, comj)ared with the number 

 of occasions on which (considering the 1,.')00,000,000 per 

 sons existing on the glolje) wo might suppose the suggested 

 powers would be exerted. 



If we follow Dr. Muirhead in likening the action of the 

 brain in such cases as these to its action when the organs 

 of sight, hearing, feeling, etc., communicate to it impressions 

 from without, the questions (which Dr. Muirht^ad reminds 

 me that I asked of him four or five years since) come 

 before us, " What is the organ by which ethereal wa\es 

 affect the brain l and how are they conceived to act ? " 

 'J'his, he says, is asking too much, at least in the present 

 state of psychological pliysiology. Yet, until these questions 

 are answered, it cannot be said that there is any sound 

 scientific basis for the brain-wave theory. 



ENGLISH SEASIDE IIEALTH-RESOUTS. 



By Alfred Haviland, M.R.C.S., F.R.M.C.S. Lend. 



CLASSIFICATION {Coniinucd from ■pane 110). 



'^I'MIE accompanying climate chart of England and Wales 

 J. will, so far as temperature is concerned, enable us to 

 understand the eflects of the gulf-stream in winter and the 

 sun-heat in summer, on the climate of our sea-coasts. 

 The mean air temperatures of January and July are given, 

 simply because they are the months in which the extremes 

 of cold and heat are observed. 



The dolled winter or Gulf stream isothermit (heat- 

 contours) must be studied so as (o leave a distinct idea on 

 the mind of the mode of their arrangement around otir 

 coasts. In the first place, it will be seen that they more 

 or less follow the lines of longitude, and therefore cross 

 the parallels of latitude at different angles. Secondly, 

 that they have two sets of curves ; o?w having their long 

 axes in the direction of the tidal wave on both sides of 

 England, whilst the others take an opposite direction. 



The first set are seen to be deflected from their general 

 north-easterly direction on the west coast, first, by the 

 ICnglii^li Channel, when the degrees 4.3°, 42°, 41'", 40^ and 

 :!!)'-' have their long axes in mid-channel, from ofl Plymouth 

 to the Straits of Dover, in an IC.N.E. direction. Next come 

 the Bristol Channel curves, which give evidence of the impor- 

 tant part this broad inlet of the sea plays in tempering the 

 winters of those charnn'ng health-resorts with which the 

 north-coast of Devon and the coasts of Somerset and 

 South Wales anr studded. 'J'hese curves belong to the 

 same isotherms as tho.se in the Knglith Channel, but owinj; 

 to the axis of the Bristol Channel, their direction is as nearly 

 eas>t as possible. The curve in the ;i7° isotherm shows that 

 the influence of the Bristol Channel extends even as far as 

 the north-east of (Gloucestershire. In St. (George's CI .mnc 1 

 the curves deviate less from tljiir norni.il direction, tln^ 



