Mat 20, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



111 



is unfavorable to tlie view that any super- 

 normal power in this ease exists. 



Charles L. Dana, M.D., Professor 

 of Nervous Diseases, Cornell Uni- 

 versity Medical College. 

 WiLLUM Hallock, Professor of 



Physics, Columbia. 

 Dickinson S. Miller, Professor of 



Philosophy, Colurahia. 

 Frederick Peterson, M.D., Pro- 

 fessor of Psychiatry, College of 

 Physicians and Surgeons, Co- 

 lumbia. 

 Walter B. Pitkin, Lecturer on Phi- 

 losophy, Columbia. 

 Augustus Trowbridge, Professor of 



Physics, Princeton. 

 Edmund B. Wilson, Professor of 



Biology, Columbia. 

 EoBERT Williams Wood, Professor 

 of Physics, Johns Hophins. 

 It has been said that Eusapia iinds trickery 

 more easy than the exercise of her super- 

 normal power; that she consequently resorts 

 to the former whenever the control by the 

 sitters permits it; and that the only fair test 

 is had when there is such control as makes 

 trickery absolutely impossible. During a 

 fourth sitting, at which the undersigned were 

 present, something like this control was exer- 

 cised; and while this was the ease none of the 

 so-called evidential phenomena took place. 



C. L. Dana, W. Hallock, D. S. Mil- 

 ler, F. Peterson, W. B. Pitkin, E. 

 B. Wilson. 

 We take this opportunity of making our 

 acknowledgments to Professor Hallock for 

 his courtesy in putting his private office and 

 workshop at the disposal of the investigators; 

 and to the members of the groups at large for 

 giving their time to the sittings in the midst 

 of professional duties, in especial to those who 

 came from a distance. We wish to record our 

 regret that, owing to circumstances beyond 

 our control, the X-ray test, ingeniously de- 

 vised by Professor Wood, could not be ap- 

 plied. W. P. Montague, 

 W. B. Pitkin, 

 D. S. Miller 



I have been present at nine sittings with 

 Eusapia and in an adjoining room at a tenth. 

 Broadly speaking, her " phenomena," as ob- 

 served in America and as reported before, fall 

 into seven classes : (1) levitations of a table, 

 (2) rappings, (3) touches, (4) breezes, (5)' 

 lights, (6) " materializations," (7) movements: 

 in and about the cabinet. With the lights I 

 was not favored. Of all the other classes, I 

 can say: (1) That conclusive and detailed' 

 evidence was gained as to the method by which 

 typical specimens of them were repeatedly 

 produced,' and (2) that when the medium was 

 securely held they were not produced at all.. 



Statements of observations on essential 

 points will, I trust, be published later. These- 

 include each of the classes named. 



It may be asked, however, what we are to* 

 make of the results presented in the Bulletin. 

 of the Institut General Psychologique of 

 Paris and in the Proceedings of the Society 

 for Psychical Research. Of these two docu- 

 ments it is, by common consent, the latter 

 which presents the strongest body of evidence 

 for Eusapia's supernormal power. The Paris 

 committee had worked mainly to establish 

 that the " phenomena " really occur and are 

 not the mere hallucinations of the sitters. 

 Of course they do occur; we must admit 

 it. But the English committee try, by report- 

 ing in detail how the medium was held and 

 watched, to give the reader evidence that the- 

 phenomena could not have been caused by- 

 trickery. The result is that we have the rec- 

 ord of a long, hard and conscientious piece 

 of labor. It is imposing. It seems at first to 

 warrant the writers' unanimous " Yes, the 

 thing is true." But read Richard Hodgson's 

 comments on the case, written sixteen years 

 ago when he was in consultation with Mr. W. 

 S. Davis; or read Mr. W. S. Davis's article 

 in the New York Times of October 17 last. 

 Read one of these enough to grasp it; then 

 attend one sitting; and the impressive effect 

 of the English report has vanished. One 

 finds himself able to point out on page after 



' Accounts are presented in the article by Pro- 

 fessor Jastrow in Collier's Weekly for May 14,. 

 1910. 



