Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/173

Rh problems of meteorology are of baffling intricacy, how much more so are those of history, with their elements of ignorance, of passion, and caprice—all controlling forces vastly greater than themselves! We have recently seen a few votes among hundreds decide the administration of the republic for years; and, within a decade, have beheld a single general's timidity or treachery betray a noble army into the enemy's hands, involving wide-spread ruin and deep national disgrace. And how often are our own individual lives utterly changed in purpose by a mere word, a smile, or a tear!



T was asserted, about thirty years ago, by Baron von Reichenbach, whose researches on the chemistry of the hydrocarbons constitute the foundation of our present knowledge of paraffin and its allied products of the distillation of coal, that he had found certain "sensitive" subjects so peculiarly affected by the neighborhood of magnets or crystals as to justify the assumption of a special polar force, which he termed Odyle, allied to, but not identical with, magnetism; present in all material substances, though generally in a less degree than in magnets and crystals; but called into energetic activity by any kind of physical or chemical change, and therefore especially abundant in the human body. Of the existence of this odylic force, which he identified with the "animal magnetism" of Mesmer, he found what he maintained to be adequate evidence in the peculiar sensations and attractions experienced by his "sensitives" when in the neighborhood either of magnets or crystals, or of human beings specially charged with it. After a magnet had been repeatedly drawn along the arm of one of these subjects, she would feel a pricking, streaming, or shooting sensation; she would smell odors proceeding from it; or she would see a small volcano of flame issuing from its poles when gazing at them, even in broad daylight. As in the magnetic sleep light is often seen by the somnambule to issue from the operator's fingers, so the odylic light was discerned in the dark by Von Reichenbach's "sensitives," issuing not only from the hands, but from the head, eyes, and mouth, of powerful generators of this force. One individual in particular was so peculiarly sensitive, that she saw (in the dark) sparks and flames issuing from ordinary nails and hooks in a wall. It was further affirmed that certain of 