

46 KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
the table remained immoveable, the upper 
card was found to have moved,—proving the 
hands to have carried it in the direction ex- 
pected. Here, then, is one experimental 
proof that the table did not draw the hands 
and the experimenter after it, nor even simul- 
taneously with it. On the contrary, the 
hands dragged along with them all things be- 
neath them—both cardboard and table; the 
hands travelling further than anything below 
them, and in truth, being retarded by the 
cards and table, which tended continually to 
keep the hands back. 
To show whether the table or the hands 
moved first, or both moved, or remained at 
rest together, an index was constructed by 
fixing an upright pin in a leaden foot, which 
stood upon the table, and using this as the 
fulerum of a light lever, twelve inches long, 
made of foolscap paper. The short arm of 
this lever, about half an inch long, was at- 
tached to a pin inserted in the edge of a piece 
of cardboard, placed on the table ready for 
the hands of the table-turner; the long arm 
serving for the index of motion. The posi- 
tions of both card and index were marked, 
the cardboard being in the first imstance 
fixed to the table by the cement before men- 
tioned, whilst the index was hidden from the 
turner, or he looked away; when, before the 
table began to move, the deflection of the 
index in the expected direction showed the 
hands were already in motion and pressing 
that way. Under these circumstances the 
experiment was not pushed to the moving of 
the table; since the table-turner was made 
aware that he had inadvertently exerted a 
lateral force. The cement fixing the card to 
the table was now removed; this, however, 
could not have interfered with the antici- 
pated results of the experiments, since the 
bundle of plates before described, and single 
pieces of cardboard, had been easily moved 
on this table; but nowthat the index was 
there, betraying to the eye and thence to 
the mind the pressure inadvertently exer- 
cised, the judgement was corrected, and not 
the least tendency to motion was manifested 
either by cardboard or table. It made no 
difference whether the card was attached to 
the table, or merely laid upon it; with the 
mdex in sight, all motion and even tendency 
to motion had vanished ! 
Dr. Faraday then describes a more com- 
plete apparatus, which is thus made :—Two 
thin boards, nine and a half inches by seven 
inches, were provided, to the under side of 
one of which another board, nine inches by 
ftve inches, was glued, so as to raise its edges 
above the table, and which was called the 
-table-board. This being put on the table, 
near and parallel to its side, an upright pin 
was fixed close to the further edge of the 
board, and equi-distant from its ends, to serve 



as the fulcrum for the index lever. Four 
pieces of glass rod, seven inches long and a 
quarter of an inch in diameter, were placed 
as rollers on this table-board, and the upper 
board placed upon them: it is obvious that 
this arrangement will sustain any amount of 
pressure desired, with a perfectly free lateral 
motion of the upper on the lower board. A 
piece was cut out of the upper board, just 
opposite to the fulerum-pin in the lower, and 
a pin, bent downwards at right angles, was 
driven in where this notch was made—the 
downward arm of the pin piercing the end of 
the short arm of the index-lever, made of 
cardboard ; the longer indicator being a hay- 
stalk of some fifteen inches long. 
To somewhat restrain the facile motion of 
the upper on the lower board, two vulcanised 
rubber rings were passed around them at the 
places where the lower board did not rest on 
the table; these rings not only tied the 
boards together, but acted as springs, so that 
whilst they permitted the feeblest tendency 
to motion to be made evident by the index, 
they nevertheless exerted sufficient resistance 
before the upper board had moved a quarter 
of an inch on either side, to resist even a 
strong lateral force exerted by the hand. 
All being thus arranged, excepting that the 
lever was removed, the boards were tied 
together tightly, by strings running parallel 
to the india-rubber springs, to as to prevent 
their moving one upon the other. The appa- 
ratus was now placed on the table, and a 
table-turner sat down to it. Shortly, the 
table moved in due order; proving the nature 
of the apparatus offered no impediment to 
the motion. When metal rollers were sub- 
stituted for glass ones, the same result was 
produced. The index was now put in its 
place and the strings taken away, so as to 
allow the springs to come into play; it was 
soon seen, in the case of a party of table- 
movers, which could will the motion in either 
direction but from whom the index was 
purposely hidden, that the hands were slowly 
creeping in the direction previously agreed 
upon, although the party certainly thought 
they were pressing downwards only. On 
being shown the true state of the case, they 
were greatly surprised; but when, on lifting 
their hands, they saw the index immediately 
return to its original position, they were con- 
vinced. When the index was no longer 
hidden from them, and they could see for 
themselves whether they were pressing 
directly downwards, or obliquely, so as to 
produce motion either to the right or the 
left, no movement was ever effected. Several 
persons tried for a long while together, and 
with the best will in the world; but no mo- 
tion right or left of the table, the hands, or 
anything else, ever occurred. 
The value of these results is the conviction 

