42 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 75. 



burn's part, Mr. Smith takes up the pencil, 

 and, amidst the absolute silence of all present, 

 reproduces as nearly as he can the impression 

 he has received. Mr. Blackburn keeps his 

 eyes closed (sometimes they are bandaged 

 as an aid to concentration) ; and he has not 

 touched Mr. Smith, and has not gone in front 

 of him, or in any way within his possible range 



ORIGINAL. 



a b 

 REPRODUCTION. 



Mr. Smith had no idea that the original was not a geometrical 

 diagram. He added line b some time after he had drawn line 

 «, ' seeing a line parallel to another somewhere.' 



of vision, since he re-entered the room. Sixty 

 pages of the drawings and reproductions are 

 given, — facsimiles of the originals from which 

 they have been photographed on the wood 

 blocks. The reproductions are rude copies of 

 the drawings^ such as a child might make, 

 blindfold, of a picture he had just seen ; but 

 in every case the resemblance is recognizable, 

 and sometimes it is very exact. A particularly 

 good one was made, when, with a view of re- 

 moving all doubt as to possible auditoiy com- 

 munication, Mr. Smith's ears were stopped 



REPRODUCTION. 



with putty, a bandage was tied round his eyes 

 and ears, a bolster-case was fastened over his 

 head, and over all was thrown a blanket which 

 enveloped his entire head and trunk ; and Mr. 

 Blackburn sat behind him as still as it is pos- 

 sible for a human being to sit who is not con- 

 centrating his attention on keeping motionless 

 to the exclusion of every thing else. To 

 profit by a code of signals in this case, Mr. 



Smith would have had to extract the putty 

 from his ears, and, still smothered in bolster- 

 case and blanket, to detect periodic variations 

 in Mr. Blackburn's breathing imperceptible to 

 the committee, and to interpret them into a 

 description of a very irregular figure. This 

 hypothesis seems to the committee an extreme 

 one, but they intend to meet it by still further 

 varying the conditions of future experiments. 

 The record is given of another set of ex- 

 periments made upon two young ladies at 

 Liverpool, under the strictest conditions, by 

 Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Birchall. The following 

 were among the guesses : — 



A gold cross. 



An egg. 



A penholder, with thim- 

 ble inverted on the end. 



Letter Q. 



A dark-crimson apple. 



A key. 



A pair of scissors standing 

 open and upright. 



'It is yellow — it is a 

 cross.' 



' Looks remarkably like 

 an egg.' 



'A column, with some- 

 thing bell-shaped 

 turned down on it.' 



'Q.' 



' Is it round — a dark-red 

 shade — like a knob of 

 a door? — It is an 

 apple.' 



' A little tiny thing, with 

 a ring at one end, and a 

 little flag at the other, 

 like a toy-flag.' Urged 

 to name it, replied, ' It 

 is very like a key.' 



1 Is it silver? — No: it is 

 steel — it is a pair of 

 scissors standing up- 

 right.' 



The usual phenomena were obtained by the 

 committee on mesmerism, but with the utmost 

 precaution against collusion and fraud. The 

 cases which do most to stagger a cultivated 

 scepticism are those in which the subject re- 

 mains in a perfectly normal condition, with 

 the exception of local effects produced on 

 him without contact, and without any possi- 

 bility of expectation on his part. The fol- 

 lowing experiment was repeated thirty or 

 forty times without a single failure. The 

 subject was blindfolded and seated at a ta- 

 ble, on which his ten fingers were spread out 

 before him. A screen formed of thick brown 

 paper quadruply folded was placed in front 

 of him, extending far beyond him in all 

 directions. Two of his fingers were then se- 

 lected by one of the committee, and silently 

 pointed out to the mesmerizer, who proceeded 

 to make very gentle passes over them ; and 

 to prevent the communication to the subject 

 of a sensation of change of temperature, or a 

 current of air, a member of the committee 

 made, as nearly as possible, similar passes 

 over two others of his fingers. After a min- 



