Deleuze, "whether its [artificial somnambulism] sudden propagation has not produced as much evil as good, and whether it would not have been better that this marvelous phenomenon had not been at first observed, and that people had confined themselves to magnetism as Mesmer taught it, and as many persons before him practiced it, without knowing whether they employed a particular agent, or a faculty common to all men."

The first step is thus made toward an explanation of Foster's doings, by the mesmeric theory, in the knowledge that the "power of magnetizing lies in every one." A second step will have been made by the abandonment of the commonly received view that two persons are essential in Mesmeric operations, one strong, the other weak; the first attracting, then bringing into reckless subjection, much as the serpent fascinates the bird. Deleuze describes at length the processes of magnetism; but the teaching of later Mesmerists is to the effect that the "power of magnetizing" is not only "common to all men," but extends to the magnetism of one's self.

"The methods of modern magnetism," remarks Dr. Fahnestock, "are scarcely less absurd than those of Mesmer and his immediate followers. Some operators of the present day, who believe in a magnetic influence, still pursue the ludicrous methods of sitting down opposite to the patient, holding his thumbs, staring into his eyes, making passes, etc., etc." He remarks further that he has never noticed any perceptible difference in the susceptibility of persons, "which depends more on the state of the subject's mind at the time of trial than upon sex, temperament," etc., etc.

Again: "The operator has no power to produce this condition, and, independent of his instructions and his capability of managing while in it, has nothing to do with it. *** It is possible for any person to throw himself into this state at pleasure, independent of any

one."

Dr. Fahnestock continues: "I have had over three hundred different individuals enter this state under my care, and have found by innumerable experiments that they are entirely independent of me, and can enter this state and awaken themselves whenever they please, notwithstanding all I can do to the contrary. They can throw the whole or any part of the body into this state at pleasure, and I

have seen many do it in an instant, a single finger, a hand, an arm, the whole brain, or even a single organ (or portion) and awake them at pleasure."

"The powers of perception in this state, compared with the same function in a natural state, are inconceivably greater, and it is impossible for those who have not seen or made the necessary experiments to conceive the difference. Language fails to express it, and our common philosophy is too circumscribed to explain the reality."

"This function, when roused and properly directed, is extremely sensitive and correct, and most subjects, by an act of their will, can translate their perceptions to any part of the body, whether to the stomach, feet, hands, or fingers, and use them at these points as well as at any other."

"When a function of perception becomes active, while in a state of artificial somnambulism, it is enabled to perceive without the aid of the external senses.”

If the testimonies of Dr. Fahnestock, who is still living, be true, he demonstrates the power of a person, thoroughly in the somnambulic state, to read the mind of another, far or near, and in this position he is supported by numerous writers.

Assuming for the moment the truth of the mesmeric propositions already quoted, and what does there lack of a full explanation of Foster's so-called invocation of spirits but fuller practical knowledge of this vast field of little-explored artificial somnambulism, against which, maybe with just and proper prejudice, we so determinedly shut our eyes? Capable of taking on and laying off the somnambulic state in an instant, he appears simply as a trained clairvoyant of variable powers; strongly clear-minded when he speaks my name or reads my thoughts without utterance on my part; more feebly so when it is necessary to write them down, in order to better define them to his dimmer perception, or enable him to read them through his fingers' ends; whose very imperfections of clairvoyant power may be attributable to possible lack of a "meditative mind, great prudence, severe manners, religious dispositions, gravity of character, positive knowledge, and other qualities," which, according to Deleuze, are essential to complete availability of the somnambulic power, and which made Ste. Hildegarde so noted for her power of magnetic sight.

his compeers, are sadly perplexed to find the curb that shall correct the destructive fury of the wave, which travels with the moon at the rate of 1,000 miles per hour into the harmless pulsation whose energies are wasted on a few feet of ocean strand.

The moon theory of the tides originated with Aristotle. Pliny suggested an improvement on it in his "luni-solar theory." An attempt to improve upon this is found in the "Cotidal System," while this in turn is asserted by the "Derivative System" of Professor Norton, which conceives the moon to drag the wave (he uses the word drag) after it; but he too, like his predecessors, drags it the wrong way.

are

Let us examine now some other points wherein the theory seems to be defective. Since it ascribes the tides to the potency of both moon and sun, allotting two-fifths of the resultant to the latter, it should be expected that when the sun and moon in quadrature there should be four different tides at one and the same time on four different parts of the earth, at least during the maximum period of this phenomenon. The fact is otherwise, and the theorists explain the discrepancy by declaring the waters to obey the behests of the moon, fashioning themselves into a compound neap tide, and robbing the sun of his just claim to a twofifths share in the achievement.

At a quarter farther on the sun and moon are in opposition; they have the earth between them, and hence exert their attractive energy in opposite directions. We should therefore expect, upon reasonable analogy, to find as the resultant a feeble tide, for the attracting forces should partially neutralize each other, and we should have, instead of the flood-tide which really occurs, but a fractional part, one-fifth, of the combined attractive powers as a surplus for tidal effect.

From these considerations we are, I hold, justified in seeking elsewhere for the explanation of the tides than in the theory which is plainly insufficient, and, when carefully examined, glaringly inconsistent with itself.

We may remark, in introducing the explanation we shall offer in its place, that there are other periodical phenomena, both in the living and lifeless kingdoms of Nature, which may as justly be claimed to be coincident with the phases of the moon as that of the tides, but in which to claim on that account relationship would be palpably absurd. They have their elucidation in, and are manifestly referable to, that harmonious pulsation of nature which exhibits itself in the throbbing

of the heart, in the motion of the blood, the vibration of sound, the "nodding" of the poles of the earth,-in all mechanical movements, and in the measured cadence of the waterfall as it rises and falls in its musical rhythms.

Herbert Spencer, in his chapter on the Rhythm of motion, says: "After having for some years supposed myself alone in the belief that all motion is rhythmical, I discovered that my friend Prof. Tyndall also held this doctrine." And here allow me to state that in my earliest aërial voyages I noticed this nodding motion in nature manifested in various ways: in sounds, in the undulations of the balloon's course, but most expressively in the rotatory motion of the aerial globe. In 1841, during an aërial voyage from the town of Danville, Pa., I noted the following in my log-book:* "During this voyage I observed a peculiar motion in the balloon, which had on former occasions drawn some attention from me, but which had not been closely investigated. It is this: When a balloon is sailing along with a steady current, while in equilibrium with the atmosphere, it revolves slowly on its vertical axis. This rotation is not at all times a smoothly continued circulation, but is pulsatory, like the notched wheel in a clock, as actuated by the pendulum. At first I attributed this motion to my breathing, believing the vibrations of the lungs sufficient to give a corresponding motion to so delicately balanced a thing as a balloon is when suspended in space. I held my breath as long as I could, and this was done several times, but the pulsations of the balloon were not interrupted by it; on the other hand, they became more audible during these experiments. Upon timing these pulsations I found them to be every two and a half seconds, and very regular. This left me at a loss to account for this motion, as it seemed not to be caused by my breathing, and did not correspond to the beat of my pulse.” I noticed this peculiarity of the balloon's motion always when it was sailing along horizontally at great altitudes where it seemed to be uninfluenced by the irregularities of the earth's surface.

The ocean tides express this rhythmical pulsation as they beat the shores of the continent, in their breathing and heaving motions, keeping time as it were with nature's balance-wheel, universal gravitation. We see its evidences in the eruptions of volcanoes, in the earthquakes, in the great storms and

* History and Practice of Aeronautics, page 212.

floods, and we find it even in the animal system as exhibited in periodic and intermittent fevers.

Upon this view of matter and its movements, so impressively pointed out in the modern platform of philosophy, Correlation and persistence of force, I hold that we require no assumptions and no unwarrantable hypothesis in the explanation of the tides. Nature is not arbitrary in its ways, however arbitrary men may be at times in their ways of explaining natural phenomena. To say that gravitation pulls a little more here than there on the surface of the earth, in order to account for a little more tide here than there, as it in fact occurs, is to make nature as capricious as did the doctrine of the "crystalline spheres," wherein the philosophers held that the stars in the vault of heaven were riveted on these shells in a fixed manner, while a very few were left free to roam between the crystal shells, which they called wanderers (planets), to straggle about like drunken men.

In recent measurements of the earth it has been ascertained that its equatorial diameter is not a perfect circle but an ellipse: that is to say, the equatorial diameter which pierces it from longitude 14 degrees east to 194 degrees east (Greenwich), is two miles longer than that at right angles to it. (Royal Astronomical Society's vol. 29, 1860.)

These two bulges on the earth may have something to do with the gurgitation and regurgitation of the tides. The law of universal gravitation pervades all matter, from the minutest monad up to the most stupendous orbs. It is the vis viva of atoms as well as of worlds, since worlds are but atoms of a larger growth. We have the most sublime illustration of its universality when we cast our eyes upon the heavens, and we see it again in mysterious miniature form in molecular motion as revealed under the power of the microscope. So here as there we behold a life-giving manifestation spring out of the law of universal gravitation, tearing down at one place and building up at another; changing their configuration and altering the sinuosities of their water-lines. The labor of the tides in the past forms a marvelous history which the geologist is busy in deciphering.

It is an indisputable law of mechanics that a rotating body generates centrifugal force, as illustrated by the revolving grindstone as it throws the water on its periphery forward; and sometimes, when the centrifugal force is greater than the centripetal, it flies from its

center, i. l., bursts. The globe we inhabit presents this motion, and its oceans should have a wave rolling round in accordance with this force from west to east, and so it has. Maury ascribes it to the "brave west winds," as sailors call them. They help, no doubt, but they too come from centrifugal force, and the air, being much lighter than water, moves so much more rapidly.

Allow me to term this the centrifugal theory of tides. I hold that centrifugal and centripetal force are the legitimate expressions of the law of universal gravitation; that the planets are subjected in their motion and orbits in accordance to the laws of natural distribution and compensation, agreeably to the quantity of matter contained in each respectively, moving in the direction of least resistance, which must necessarily be in the track of a circle, or nearly so, if we take the sun with its center as the centripetal point of our solar system.

The first authenticated records we have of this centrifugal wave rolling round the earth from west to east, are given in the log of the clipper ship "Sovereign of the Seas," in her remarkable short passage of eighty-three days from the Sandwich Islands to New York, in 1853, in accordance with Maury's chart furnished by our government. This ship made 163 knots an hour in her easting for four consecutive days while riding this great centrifugal wave in her doubling of Cape Horn. And in the same year, by the same directions, the sailing ship "Flying Scud" made equally good time in easting, and made as much as 449 miles in one day, taking advantage of this fact of the great tidal wave.

But how does this wave produce two daily tides? It does not produce two distinct tides daily on the great southern ocean! Nor does it at all points intertropical. It only makes two tides, by gurgitation and regurgitation, as it is thrown out from its central crest into the seas between the continents, oscillating from one shore to the other, thus producing high and low water, or flood and ebb tide at the average intervals of twelve and a half hours; giving rise to all grades of tides in accordance to the shape of the seas and gulfs, bays and rivers, and their openings to receive it.

In the Bay of Fundy, with its mouth open to the swell tide, and contiguous to the Gulf Stream, it rises to the height of sixty and seventy feet, and, when assisted by a wind, to a hundred feet. In the Mediterranean, with its mouth nearly shut at Gibraltar, it rises only a dozen of inches.