CREATURES OF MYSTERY 
173 
vicious animals. This, says Dr. Newman, is particularly seen 
in the case of watchdogs, over whom burglars have found the 
secret of exercising so seductive and quieting an influence as 
to keep them in silence while the robbery is being committed. 
Lindcrantz, of Sweden, tells us that the natives of Lapland 
are in possession of this secret generally, inasmuch as they can 
instantly disarm the most ferocious dog, and oblige him to fly 
from them with every sign of fear. 
Although the serpent’s power of fascination is usually at¬ 
tributed to the eyes, the swiftly darting tongue, and, in the 
case of the rattlesnake, the sound of the rattles, an additional 
factor, in the latter instance, may be the symmetrical markings 
on the back of the snake. Coiled amidst dead grass and leaves, 
the body of the snake is concealed, but these brightly colored 
designs remain in view, brought out in full relief against the 
dull brown skin. The bright color and the geometrical pat¬ 
terns probably play no unimportant part in exerting the stupe¬ 
fying effect that ends in complete submission to the serpent’s 
deadly charm. 
It is a well-known psychological fact that the eye becomes 
intensely strained and wearied by continued gazing at regular 
or fantastic geometrical designs, and if persisted in, the brain 
itself becomes affected, even to the point where the reason 
becomes unbalanced. Everyone is familiar with the drawings 
of cubes, with their angles projecting toward the spectator, 
but at another instant seems to reverse and show hollow boxes 
with their angles pointing inward. A similar effect is produced 
by spiral diagrams, which apparently begin to spin rapidly 
on their axes if the sheet on which they are printed is given 
a slow rotary motion. 
The possibility of inflicting mental torture and ultimately 
causing insanity through the employment of these objects, per¬ 
haps assisted by glaring lights and monotonous sounds, has not 
escaped man’s cruel inventive genius. Edgar Allan Poe writes 
an imaginary account of the deadly fascination of a swinging 
pendulum and gradually narrowing space upon the mind of a 
prisoner who was thus subjected to mental torture during the 
Spanish Inquisition, in his story called “The Pit and the Pen- 
