i 882.] 
291 ) 
ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
Evenings at Home in Spiritual Seance Welded together by a 
Species of Autobiography . By Miss Houghton. Second 
Series. London : E. W. Allen. 
This volume is a continuation of a work which we had the 
pleasure of noticing a little while ago. Some most remarkable 
phenomena are here recorded. Thus at a seance at which the 
author was present “ a sudden and violent motion among the 
tubes startled us, and a quantity of snow and ice came down 
upon the table. We had the light at once and found that 
although such a large quantity had fallen, there was none upon 
the carpet or in any other part of the room. The lumps of ice 
were irregular in size, but the smallest must have weighed more 
than half a pound, and they where literally buried in snow. I 
noticed that the snow had the peculiarities of newly-fallen snow, 
and for a moment distindt feathery flakes could be seen, but the 
warmth of the room soon changed this appearance.” The 
feathery character of the snow is the important point, for ice and 
snow, if packed in some non-condudting substance can be pre- 
served for a considerable time in temperatures quite as high as 
that of a comfortable room. 
The following is an almost equally uncomfortable manifesta- 
tion. “ We had a feeling as if something very light indeed were 
falling upon us .... at last we clearly made out that it 
was small downy feathers.” On a light being made it appeared 
that the floor was covered over with down. It is added that on 
making a search on the floor above there was found the empty 
case of what had that morning been a feather bed ! 
On another occasion “ when we were told to have a light we 
found the table was quite heaped up with flowers in delicious 
profusion. Mrs. Guppy, taking up one of the cowslips, called 
my attention to the fadt that, on squeezing the end of the stalk, 
juice flowed instantly — a proof that they were but just plucked, 
for that even in ten minutes after flowers are gathered a kind of 
healing or drying process takes place where the stem has been 
broken off, so that it will not bleed.” 
If we may be permitted to make a suggestion we would ask 
Spiritualists to have brought by their unseen visitors, a live 
Goliathus, or Ornithoptera. No such creatures have ever been 
brought to Europe alive, and probably could not be unless a ship 
