Page:Experimental researches in chemistry and.djvu/404

1853.] strong lateral action of the hand. All being thus arranged, except that the lever was away, the two boards were tied together with string, running parallel to the vulcanized rubber Springs, so as to be immovable in relation to each other. They were then placed on the table, and a table-turner sat down to them:—the table very shortly moved in due order, showing that the apparatus offered no impediment to the action. A like apparatus, with metal rollers, produced the same result under the hands of another person. The index was now put into its place and the string loosened, so that the springs should come into play. It was soon seen, with the party that could will the motion in either direction (from whom the index was purposely hidden), that the hands were gradually creeping up in the direction before agreed upon, though the party certainly thought they were pressing downwards only. When shown that it was so, they were truly surprised; but when they lifted up their hands and immediately saw the index return to its normal position, they were convinced. When they looked at the index and could see for themselves whether they were pressing truly downwards, or obliquely so as to produce a resultant in the right» or left-handed direction, then such an effect never took place. Several tried, for a long while together, and with the best will in the world; but no motion, right or left, of the table, or hand, or anything else occurred.—[Then occurs a passage from the ' Times, ' already printed at pp. 383, 384.]

Another form of index was applied thus:—a circular hole was cut in the middle of the upper board, and a piece of cartridge paper pasted under it on the lower surface of the board; a thin slice of cork was fixed on the upper surface of the lower board corresponding to the cartridge paper; the interval between them might be a quarter of an inch or less. A needle was fixed into the end of one of the index hay-stalks, and when all was in place the needle point was passed through the cartridge paper and pressed slightly into the cork beneath, so as to stand upright: then any motion of the hand, or hand board, was instantly rendered evident by the deflection of the perpendicular hay-stalk to the right or left.

I think the apparatus I have described may be useful to many who really wish to know the truth of nature, and would prefer that truth to a mistaken conclusion; desired, perhaps