4g2 Further Experiments [October, 



few. Within the last twelve months I have met in private 

 families five or six persons possessing a sufficiently vigorous 

 development to make me feel confident that similar results 

 might be produced through their means to those here 

 recorded, provided the experimentalist worked with more 

 delicate apparatus, capable of indicating a fraction of a grain 

 instead of recording pounds and ounces only. 



As far as my other occupations will permit, I purpose to 

 continue the experiments in various forms, and I will report 

 from time to time their results. In the meanwhile I trust 

 that others will be induced to pursue the investigation in 

 its scientific form. It should, however, be understood that, 

 equally with all other scientific experiments, these researches 

 must be conducted in strict compliance with the conditions 

 under which the force is developed. As it is an indispensable 

 condition of experiments with frictional electricity that the 

 atmosphere should be free from excess of moisture, and that 

 no conducting medium should touch the instrument while the 

 force is being generated, so certain conditions are found to 

 be essential to the production and operation of the Psychic 

 force, and unless these precautions are observed the experi- 

 ments will fail. I am emphatic on this point, because 

 unreasonable objections have sometimes been made to 

 the Psychic Force that it is not developed under ad- 

 verse conditions dictated by the experimentalist, who, 

 nevertheless, would object to conditions being imposed 

 upon himself in the exhibition of any of his own scientific 

 results. But I may add, that the conditions required are very 

 few, very reasonable, and in no way obstruct the most perfect 

 observation and the application of the most rigid and 

 accurate tests. 



Just before going to press I have received from my friend 

 Professor Morton an advance sheet of the "Journal of the 

 Franklin Institute," containing some remarks on my last 

 paper by Mr. Coleman Sellers, a leading scientific engineer 

 of the United States. The essence of his cricitism is con- 

 tained in the following quotation: — 



" On page 341 " (of the Quarterly Journal of Science) " we have given a 

 mahogany board ' 36 inches long by g\ inches wide, and 1 inch thick,' with 

 ' at each end a strip of mahogany i| inches wide screwed on, forming feet.' 

 This board was so placed as to rest with one end on the table, the other 

 suspended by a spring balance, and, so suspended, it recorded a weight of 

 3 pounds ; i.e., a mahogany board of the above dimensions is shown to weigh 

 6 pounds — 3 pounds on the balance and 3 pounds on the table. A mechanic 

 used to handling wood wonders how this may be. He looks through his 



