SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, NOVEMBER ii, 1887. 



The announcement which has been going the rounds of the 

 press, of the perfecting by Mr. Edison of his phonograph, certainly 

 seems startling, and one which might be denied without arousing 

 surprise ; but it now appears as if the world were soon to be 

 treated to another great fruit of inventive genius, and that one of 

 the great R's may soon be displaced. Mr. Edison, in a letter 

 to the editor of The Engineering and Mining Journal, has ex- 

 pressed in his frank and usual hearty way such utter confidence in 

 the successful performance of all, or even more than all, that is 

 hoped for, that we look forward to the receipt of our first phono- 

 graph with anxious curiosity. Those who remember the phono- 

 graph of ten years ago will recall that it was next to impossible to 

 reproduce tones that were absolutely distinct ; that is, sufficiently 

 distinct to be recognized without difficulty or mistake by some per- 

 son who had not heard the original utterances. To-day these dif- 

 ficulties have been overcome ; and the sender of a message, after 

 setting the machine in motion, need only talk into the machine 

 with his natural and usual voice, then withdraw the phonogram, 

 which corresponds to the old sheet of tinfoil, which could not be 

 withdrawn, and mail to his friends in this way his verbatim utter- 

 ances. These phonograms will cost but little more than an ordi- 

 nary sheet of letter-paper, and will be made in various sizes to 

 accommodate messages varying in length from eight hundred to 

 four thousand words. On the receipt of such a phonogram, it can 

 readily be placed in the apparatus of the receiving instrument, and 

 it will at once speak out with distinctness and clearness equal to 

 that of the human voice at the same rate of speed at which it was 

 originally dictated. These phonograms will not be obliterated by 

 the first use, but may be kept on file, ready for reproduction when- 

 ever necessary. 



The October number of the Journal of the Society for 

 Psychical Research contains this statement ; " It will be remem- 

 bered that the earliest experiments in thought-transferrence de- 

 scribed in the society's Proceedings were made with some sisters of 

 the name of Creery ; and that, though stress was never laid on any 

 trials where a chance of collusion was afforded by one or more of 

 the sisters sharing in the ' agency,' nevertheless some results ob- 

 tained under such conditions were included in the records. In a 

 series of experiments recently made at Cambridge, two of the sis- 

 ters, acting as ' agent ' and ' percipient,' were detected in the use of 

 a code of signals ; and a third has confessed to a certain amount of 

 signalling in the earlier series to which I have referred. This fact 

 throws discredit on the results of all former trials conducted under 

 similar conditions. How far the proved willingness to deceive can 

 be held to affect the experiments on which we relied, where col- 

 lusion was excluded, must of course depend on the degree of strin- 

 gency of the precautions taken against trickery of other sorts, as to 

 which every reader will form his own opinion." The prompt pub- 

 lication of this damaging discover)', and it is a very damaging one, 

 is only another evidence of the thorough candor and fair-minded- 

 ness with which Messrs. Myers and Gurney have conducted the 

 experiments in behalf of the society. These Creery girls, daughters 

 of a Devonshire clergyman, and from ten to seventeen years of age 

 when the experiments were originally tried, were among the first in 

 whom the so-called ' telepathy ' was discovered. The record of 

 the experiments with these girls was one of the most interesting 

 chapters in the society's early history. It is extremely mortifying. 



therefore, to find them tainted with fraud ; and the exclamations, 

 " I told you so ! " will be numerous. Yet it does not follow that all 

 the experiments were worthless. A searching revision of them 

 must, however, be made, and we may rest assured that the able 

 and untiring executive officers of the society will make it. 



AN INVESTIGATION OF DREAMS. 

 The American Society for Psychical Research is collecting ac- 

 counts of cases where one person has had some remarkable experi- 

 ence, such as an exceptionally vivid and disturbing dream, or a 

 strong waking impression amounting to a distinct hallucination, 

 concerning another person at a distance, who was, at the time, 

 passing through some crisis, such as death, or illness, or some other 

 calamity. It appears that coincidences of this sort have occurred, 

 but it may be alleged that they are due to mere chance. For the 

 determination of this, it is desirable to ascertain tbe proportion 

 between {a) the number of persons in the community who have 

 not had any such experiences at all ; (b) the number of persons who 

 have had such experiences coinciding with real events ; (c) the 

 number of persons who have had experiences which, though simi- 

 lar to the foregoing in other respects, did 7iot coincide with real 

 events. 



The society has therefore issued a circular requesting every one 

 who receives it in the course of the next six months to repeat the 

 questions given below, verbatim, to as many trustworthy persons as 

 possible, from whom he does not know which answer to expect, 

 and who have not already been interrogated by some one else, and 

 communicate the results. The questions are so framed as to re- 

 quire no answer but ' yes ' or ' no.' Special attention is drawn to 

 the fact that the object of the inquiry would be defeated if replies 

 were received only from persons who have had remarkable experi- 

 ences of the kind referred to (whether coincident with real events 

 or not); and there should be no selection whatever of persons who 

 have had such experiences. In case of negative answers only, it 

 will be sufficient if the collector will send (not for publication) his 

 own name and address, with the replies which he has received. 



If there are any affirmative answers, the society desire to receive 

 also (not for publication) the name and address of any person who 

 answers 'yes.' If the experience has been coincident with a real 

 event, they specially request the percipient to send an account of it. 

 All communications should be sent to the secretary, Richard 

 Hodgson, 5 Boylston Place, Boston, Mass., from whom additional 

 copies of the circular may be obtained. It is of the utmost impor- 

 tance to obtain answers from a very large number of persons, and 

 it is hoped that many thousands of replies will be received. The 

 questions are as follows : — 



I. Have you, within the past year, when in good health, had a 

 dream of the death of some person known to you (about whom you 

 were not anxious at the time), which dream you marked as an ex- 

 ceptionally vivid one, and of which the distressing impression lasted 

 for at least as long as an hour' after you rose in the morning ? 



II. Have you, within the past three years but not within the past 

 year, when in good health, had a dream of the death of some per- 

 son known to you (about whom you were not anxious at the time), 

 which dream you marked as an exceptionally vivid one, and of 

 which the distressing impression lasted for at least as long as an 

 hour after you rose in the morning.' 



III. Have you, within the past twelve years but not within the 

 past three years, when in good health, had a dream of the death of 

 some person known to you (about whom you were not anxious at 

 the time), which dream you marked as an exceptionally vivid one, 

 and of which the distressing impression lasted for at least as long 

 as an hour after you rose in the morning .'' 



IV. Have you, at any time during your life but not within the past 

 twelve years, when in good health, had a dream of the death of 



