< Professor Crookes Statement (continued from page 3-159) >
current can still pass, the effect is quite as surely made evident by the galvanometer.
On Friday evening, Feb. 19th, Mrs. Fay came to my house alone, to submit to these tests, in the presence of several well known scientific men. She entered the drawing-room, and conversed with us for about a quarter of an hour, after which my friends went down stairs to examine the electrical apparatus and my library, which was to be used as the dark room. They examined the cupboards and opened the desks. They put strips of paper over the fastenings of the window shutters and sealed them with their signet-rings. They also sealed up, in a similar manner, the second door of the library, which opens into a passage. The other door opens from the library into my laboratory, in which the experimentalists remained during the tests; a curtain, consequently, was suspended over this door, to place the library in comparative darkness, and to admit of rapid and easy passage to and fro.
The medium takes hold of two handles, attached to the wires below the arrow, and thus completes the circuit, and causes the light from the galvanometer to be deflected on the scale. The shunt is now adjusted, the object being to distribute the current between the galvanometer and the shunt, so as to cause a convenient deflection of the former. Any movement of the medium is now seen by a variation of the position of the spot of light. If the wires or handles are short circuited in any way the spot of light flies off the scale; if, on the other hand, contact is broken by the medium leaving go, the light immediately drops to zero.
To take the resistance of the medium, the key, B, is pressed down, which places the resistance coils in the circuit instead of the medium. Pegs are then taken out till the deflection on the galvanometer is equal to that produced by the medium; the resistances are then equal both of the medium and coils, and the figures are read off on the latter.
The reflecting galvanometer with resistance coil and shunt, were placed close against the wall in the laboratory by the side of the curtain, and two short pieces of very thick wire ran through the wall, and were securely soldered to two brass handles on the other side; these handles were to be held by Mrs. Fay, whose body thus completed the electrical circuit, and gave me a deflection on the galvanometer varying with her electrical resistance. The brass handles were tightly covered with two pieces of linen soaked in salt and water. Before commencing the experiments, Mrs. Fay soaked her hands in salt and water, and on then taking hold of the handles, I have always found the amount of the deflection to be very steady, owing to the large amount of conducting surface exposed to contact with the hands. When she seized the terminals, the exact amount of deflection due to the resistance of her body was given by the galvanometer; if she caused the handles to touch each other the deflection was so great as to cause the light to fly wildly off the scale ; if she ceased to bold the handles for an instant the ray of light came to zero; if she had attempted to substitute anything besides her body to establish partial contact between the two handles, the great oscillations of the luminous index, which would have taken place while it was being done would at once have exposed her, after which the chances would have been infinite against its producing the right amount of deflection.
My friends inspected these arrangements, and two of them, well-known fellows of the Royal Society, tried what could be done by connecting the two terminals with a damp handkerchief. By a series of careful adjustments, between each of which they had to ask me what amount of deflection had thus been produced upon the galvanometer outside, they in time obtained an amount of resistance the same as that of a human body; but to effect this would have been impossible without information as to the indications given by the galvanometer outside, and all this time the violent oscillations of the ray of light showed that they were trying to make a new contact by tricks of some kind. At the suggestion of one of them, however, and to obviate this barely possible source of error, the brass handles were nailed so far apart, that he expressed himself satisfied that neither he nor anybody else could repeat the experiment with the handkerchief which he had just exhibited.
Mrs. Fay was then invited down into the library; she took her seat in a chair before the brass handles, and the gaslights in the library were then reduced to one, which was turned low. We noted the distance from her several prominent articles. A musical box was lying on my desk at a distance of about four feet from her; a violin lay upon the table at a distance of about eight feet; and my library ladder rested against the book shelves at a distance from her of about twelve feet. We then asked her to moisten her hands with salt solution, and to sieze the terminals. This she did, and at once a deflection was produced upon the galvanometer scale due to the resistance of her body; we then left the library and entered the laboratory, which was illuminated by gas sufficiently for us to see everything distinctly.
We commenced the tests at 8.55, p. m.; the deflection by the galvanometer was 211 deg, and the resistance of Mrs. Fay’s body 6,600 British Association units. At 8,56 the deflection was 214deg, and at this moment a hand-bell began to ring in the library. At 8,57 the deflection was 215deg. A hand came out of the cabinet on the side of the door farthest from Mrs. Fay.
It should be clearly understood that I was on one side of the wall with the galvanometer, that Mrs. Fay was on the opposite side holding the handles, soldered to pieces of wire, so secured that she could not move her hands or the handles an inch to the right or left, and that under these conditions, a hand came out from the farthest side of the curtained door alongside us, at a distance of three feet from the brass handles, and all within two minutes after we had left the room.
At 8.58, the deflection was 208deg.; at 8.59, it was 215deg, and at this moment a hand came out at the further side of the curtain, and handed a copy of The Spiritualist newspaper to Mr. Harrison.
At 9 o’clock the deflection was 209deg.; at this moment a hand was again seen to come out and hand Serjeant Cox a copy of his book entitled “What am I?” At 9.1 the deflection was 206deg, the hand appeared again, and gave a little book on “Spectrum Analysis,” to its author, who was one of the observers.
At 9.2 the deflection was 214deg.; a hand was again visible and gave a well-known traveller who was present a book entitled “Art of Travel.”
At 9. 3, the hand threw a box of cigarettes at another gentleman who was present, and who was known to be partial to the fragrant weed. I could have been positive that that box of cigarettes was in a locked drawer in my desk, when Mrs. Fay entered the room.
At 9.4 the deflection was 213deg. I again measured the resistance of Mrs. Fay’s body, and it was then 6.500 British Association units. At this moment a small ornamented clock, which had been standing on the mantle-piece five feet from the medium, was handed out.
At 9.4-2, the deflection was 210deg; Serjeant Cox, and some of the other observers, said that they saw a full human form standing at the opening of the curtain.
At 9.5, the circuit was seen to be suddenly broken. I entered the library instantly, followed by the others, and found that Mrs. Fay had fainted, or was entranced. She was lying back in the chair senseless, but revived in the course of half an hour. Thus this remarkable seance lasted for exactly ten minutes.
A piece of old china, in the shape of a plate, was found lying upon the top of my writing-desk in the library; it was not there before the experiments began. In my drawingroom upstairs there is a moulding all around the wall, near the ceiling, and about eight feet from the ground; resting upon this moulding are several pieces of old china, including some small plates. Mrs. Fay had been in the drawing-room for about an hour before the seance began, but she was not there except in the presence of several witnesses; the room was well lighted, and had she mounted a chair to reach one of the plates near the ceiling, of course every one must have seen it. The plates had been on those mouldings for weeks without being moved, for no member of my family had occasion to touch them and one of the gentlemen present said he was sure that the plate was not on the desk when the experiments commenced, because he looked at the top of the desk with the intention of placing something on it, which he wished to put out of the way. Many similar cases of the carriage of solid <... continues on page 3-161 >
