October 12, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



175 



Jules Li(5geois, who has studied most carefully the legal aspects of 

 hypnotism, suggested to a lady subject that she take a pistol and 

 shoot a certain Mr. O. She acted out the suggestion perfectly, not 

 knowing that the load was a blank cartridge. When again hypno- 

 tized, she admitted the crime and defended her action. Another 

 gentleman now gave her the suggestions (i) that when the insti- 

 gator of the crime enters the room she should go to sleep for two 

 minutes ; (2) on awakening, she should fix her eyes upon the man 

 constantly until allowed to desist ; (3) she should then stand in 

 front of him and attempt to conceal him. When M. Liegeois 

 entered the room, she fell asleep, and did all that was asked of her, 

 thus revealing the instigator, though told by him not to do so. 

 Professor Bernheim induced a subject to steal, and forbade him to 

 mention that he had been told to do it. The patient said he stole 

 because the idea occurred to him, but, when told to go up to the 

 true criminal and say, " Please sing me the Marseillaise," he did 

 so. It seems, then, that the subject will do nothing that he has 

 been categorically forbidden to do, but that he will succumb to an 

 indirect mode of revealing the true instigator of the crime. This 

 certainly aids the courts ; but it is a question how far it will be of 

 service when the true criminal is not present, and whether addi- 

 tional suggestions in the first instance will not considerably inter- 

 fere with the reliability of later testimony. Its further development 

 will be watched with great interest by all students of the scientific 

 aspects of mental phenomena. 



Psychic Effects of Hasheesh. — Mr. A. M. Fielde has re- 

 cently recounted his experiences under the influence of hasheesh. 

 He smoked the hasheesh until he felt a profound sense of well- 

 being, and then put the pipe aside. After a few minutes he seemed 

 to become two persons : he was conscious of his real self reclining 

 on a lounge, and of why he was there ; his double was in a vast 

 building made of gold and marbles, splendidly brilliant, and beauti- 

 ful beyond all description. He felt an extreme gratification, and 

 believed himself in heaven. This double personality suddenly 

 vanished, but re-appeared in a few minutes. His real self was 

 undergoing rhythmical spasms throughout his body : the double 

 was a marvellous instrument, producing sounds of exquisite sweet- 

 ness and perfect rhythm. Then sleep ensued, and all ended. 

 Upon another occasion sleep and waking came and went so rapidly 

 that they seemed to be confused. His double seemed to be a sea, 

 bright, and tossing as the wind blew ; then a continent. Again he 

 smoked a double dose, and sat at his table, pencil in hand, to re- 

 cord the effects. This time he lost all conception of time. He 

 arose to open a door: this seemed to take a million years. He 

 went to pacify an angry dog, and endless ages seemed to have 

 gone on his return. Conceptions of space retained their normal 

 character. He felt an unusual fulness of mental impressions, — 

 enough to fill volumes. He understood clarivoyance, hypnotism, 

 and all else. He was not one man or two, but several men living 

 at the same time in different places, with different occupations. He 

 could not write one word without hurrying to the next, his thoughts 

 flowing with enormous rapidity. The few words he did write 

 meant nothing. This experience admirably illustrates the close 

 relationship between states of real insanity and transitory affections 

 induced by psychic poisons. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Elementary Political Economy. By Edwin Cannan. London, 

 Henry Frowde. 16°. (New York, Macmillan, 25 cents.) 



This little book is designed to set forth the rudimentary truths 

 of political economy, and in some respects it is quite successful. 

 Though containing only a hundred and fifty pages, it touches most 

 of the fundamental facts and doctrines of the science, and explains 

 some of them as clearly as could be expected in so small a compass. 

 It is divided into three parts: the first treating of production ; the 

 second, of exchange and distribution ; and the third, of the eco- 

 nomic functions of the State. Mr. Cannan, however, seldom uses the 

 familiar terms ' production ' and ' distribution,' but employs rounda- 

 bout expressions instead, — a practice that seems to us the reverse 

 of commendable. He also avoids the term ' wealth,' using the 

 phrase ' useful material objects ' instead, and this phrase is re- 



peated through his pages almost ad nauseam. Another fault in a 

 work meant for beginners is the obscurity of the style in certain 

 parts, as, for instance, in the sections on profits and wages; though 

 in other parts the style is (|uite clear. Some important topics, too, 

 such as the law of agricultural rent, are overlooked. The book 

 seems to have been rather hastily prepared, and, in spite of some 

 excellent qualities, is not what an elementary treatise on economics 

 ought to be. 



Report of the Geological Survey of Ohio. Vol. VI. Economic 

 Geology. Columbus, Slate. 8°. 



The sixth annual report of the State Geological Survey of Ohio 

 appeared early in the present year. The material for publication 

 was partially ready in 1885, entirely so in 1886, and should have 

 been published in 1887. This furnishes another illustration of the 

 many difficulties with which science has to contend in bringing the 

 results of its work before the public, when dependent upon legisla- 

 tive action. 



Valuable matter accumulates, and remains in the hands of the 

 publisher for long periods, which, if presented to the public at once, 

 would be of great assistance to workers in other fields, and often- 

 times prevent time and money being spent on questions which had 

 already been solved. 



The present volume is devoted entirely to economic geology, and 

 principally to the subjects of oil and natural gas, nearly six hun- 

 dred pages out of about eight hundred being taken up with de- 

 scriptions of their modes of occurrence, their geological relations, 

 and the methods of obtaining and handling them. Much of the 

 matter has already been made public in a preliminary abstract by 

 the Slate geologist and various papers in scientific journals. 



The whole work teems with facts which are not only of interest 

 to the scientist, but of great advantage to the practical workers in 

 coal and gas as well. 



After a general review of the geology of the State, in which its 

 formations are shown to extend from the Trenton limestone as a 

 base to the Upper Barren Coal-Measures, the more prominent 

 theories of the origin of gas and oil are discussed, and compared 

 with the phenomena observed in the Ohio fields. Discarding en- 

 tirely the theory of chemical origin, it is maintained that petroleum 

 is derived from organic matter, more largely vegetable than animal, 

 but both ; that it is derived from both shales and limestones ; and 

 that in the Ohio fields it has been produced at normal rock tem- 

 peratures, and not by distillation. " The stock of petroleum in the 

 rocks is already practically complete," is the reply to the question, 

 so often asked, " Is the supply inexhaustible? " 



Till 1 884 the Trenton limestone was not considered a productive 

 oil-bearing horizon. The discoveries of that year, however, in 

 western Ohio, at once gave it a high rank. Beginning with the 

 Findlay field, where the discovery was first made, and where, out 

 of eighteen wells complete to April, 1886. but one had proved non- 

 productive, the work extended through other portions of the State, 

 the areas next in order of importance being the Lima and Bowling 

 Green fields. The quality of the gas compares more than favor- 

 ably with that of Pennsylvania ; it furnishes a very valuable fuel ; 

 and its discovery has greatly increased the development of manu- 

 facturing interests in that section, while the growth of population 

 has been correspondingly rapid. 



In the eastern portion of the State, the oil-producing rock is the 

 Berea grit, a subdivision of the sub-carboniferous. Its structural 

 features, however, are not such as to favor the accumulation of 

 paying quantities of gas or petroleum ; and, although a very large 

 number of wells have been sunk, with few exceptions they are 

 entire failures. 



In the central counties and those bodering Lake Erie to the 

 north-east, the Ohio shale furnishes a small but very persistent flow 

 of gas, which has become of considerable economic importance. 

 But while this shale is also rich in oil, it is not obtainable in suffi- 

 cient quantities to make it valuable. 



A separate chapter is devoted to a description of the Macksburg 

 oil-field, one of the earliest to be worked, and still very productive. 

 The productive area is confined to a small anticlinal in the Berea 

 grit, outside of which all wells have been complete failures. 



Of the methods of drilling, and the care of the wells during 



