2 
Notices of Booksc 
[July, 
nation. The most careful inspection under the microscope satis- 
fied me that it was absolutely identical with some that had been 
procured from the Antrim coast of Lough Neagh, while it dif- 
fered in certain respects from that obtained at the sea coast. 
Having subsequently seen a communication on this subject in 
the “ English Mechanic ” (by a writer who, I believe, had not 
been present at the seance), the purport of which was that the 
seance sand was similar to some obtained from a part of the sea- 
coast where the medium had been recently residing, I again sub- 
jected these various sands to microscopical examination, only to 
be confirmed in my previous conclusion. I followed this by a 
chemical test as follows : — I washed each sample of sand in a 
test-tube with distilled water, to which I then added a solution of 
nitrate of silver. A precipitate of chloride of silver was obtained 
from all the samples of sea-sand, but no precipitate was formed by 
that which came from Lough Neagh nor by that obtained at the 
seance, which last, under this chemical test behaved in a manner 
precisely similar to the Lough Neagh sample. I recollect that the 
result of this test was my feeling sure that the writer to whom I have 
alluded had not had the same data as those in my possession for 
arriving at a conclusion. In about a year after that time I threw 
away over a dozen different samples of sand, including those to 
which I have referred, as I required for another purpose the 
boxes in which they had been kept.” 
This clear and precise statement demonstrates the untrust- 
worthiness of the authority on whom Dr. Carpenter relies, even 
if it does not indicate his disposition to manufacture evidence 
against the medium in question. At all events, with the more 
complete account of the whole episode now before them, our 
readers will, we are sure, admit that the evidence is by no means 
free from suspicion, and is quite insufficient to justify its being 
used to support a public charge of deliberate imposture. It also 
affords another example of how Dr. Carpenter jumps at explana- 
tions which are totally inapplicable to the facffs in other cases, 
as, for example, to the production of flowers and ferns in my own 
room, as narrated in my “ Miracles and Modern Spiritualism,” 
page 164, and to that in the house of Mr. T. Adolphus Trollope, 
as given in the “ DialeCtical Report,” pp. 277 and 372, in which 
case the medium had been carefully searched by Mrs. Trollope 
before the seance began. 
We have now only to notice the extraordinary Appendix of 
pieces justificatives, which, strange to say, prove nothing, and 
have hardly any bearing on the main questions at issue. We 
have, for instance, six pages of extracts on early magic, the 
flagellants, and the dancing mania ; followed by four pages about 
Mesmer; then an account of Mr. Lewis’s experiments before the 
Medical School, Aberdeen, which failed ; then eight pages on the 
effeCts of suggestion on hypnotised patients — ^effeCts thoroughly 
known to every operator, but having no bearing on the case of 
