The San Francisco call., 1898-01-16


 that what disturbed him was not the things he saw, but the things he re- membered The visual arrangement of objects clashed with the images in his mind of their arrangement impressed by past experience. He tried to feel that as soon as he could banish his mental adjustment of objects, Supplant them with the new order Of things, he would no longer suffer those qualms and surprises which now visited him. r us composed, he arose to seek the ls. vn which surrounds the house. All movements of his limbs were exceed ing awkward. Only when the action was regardless of what he saw, and un- der the guidance of touch or memory, as when one moves in the dark, could his walking or movements of the hand be performed with reasonable security and directneSs. Otherwise the process was a series of attempts and correc- tions. The limbs started in the oppo- site direction from the one really de- sired. When l saw an object near one of my hands," he says, and wished to grasp it with that hand. the other hand was the one I moved. The mistake was then seen, and by trial, observation and correction, the desired movement was at last brought about"
 Finally reaching the lawn, the pro- lessor surveyed the trees growing out y, llIIldIneDI had become ceiled with cement in long sidewalk streaks, and observed, too, as he looked ahead of him that he seemed to be moving over blue vault brushed with golden sunlight, but which had no bottom. Suddenly some one picked up a stone and threw it. The professor saw it leave the thrower's hand re- marked the direction it was being sent and anticipated the sound of it's falling on his left. Whacki it struck the side of the house on his right; the professor quickly looked around and there sat the structure, stuck against the grassy sky, it's contents held within it by a massive peaked and shingled bottom.
 During the early days of the experi- ment the sensations the professor had were that the field was inverted. As time wore on, however, he came to feel that the trouble was not in his sur roundings but in himself; that he was inverted. If the attention was direct ed mainly inward" he says, and things were viewed in indirect atten- tion they seemed clearly to be inverted. But when on the other hand full atten- ton was given to the outer objects these frequently seemed to be in nor mai position, and whatever was of ab- normality seemed to lie in myself, as if head and shoulders were inverted and I were viewing objects from that
 
 between their legs; at other times the inversion seemed to be confined to the face and eyes alone"
 But after the second day the situa- tion began to improve. Much of the confusion which attended the early stages of the experiment had passed away and the condition was no longer a strain upon the nerves. The profes- sor was even able to walk abroad and enjoy the physical delights presented in this strange aspect of the scenery. Commensurate with this change, ideas or images of adjustment in the normal faded away, and were replaced by the inverted order. When places or objects were recalled, they did not recur in the | old adjustments, but in the new. If l chair was sought about the room, the imagination did not fancy it in q nor i nal position, to be shocked when it was l found upside down; the memory took ] hold of it as inverted and when the eye 1 caught it there was harmony within | the mind when the actual fitted the inn age. With all this came internal peace | and composure. The professor had | turned his world end for end and he was comfortably living in It.
 At night he slept we'll and though the | inhabitants of his dreams did not | sqUirtn around for him on their heads i for his mental workings in sleep seemed still to project upon the normal plane
 when he awoke the position of objects ! instantly took on the inverted form and caused him no discomfort thereby.
 And so walking up and down the l town in passive contemplative way, at evening writing the sum of his days 1 experiences in a strangely hierogIyph- ! ical chirography upon a paper pad turned upside down, so the professor i wore on these days At last came the l final hour set to close the period of his experiment. He had come to look up- on his round port hole upset view of 1 the world as being altogether proper and rational. It felt agreeable to him. ! he was comfortable when looking out upon 1t. when, alas. the guide slipped out the lenses and left the black tube sticking there without glasses and prestol all was turned about again. This was the normal. regular old world he looked upon now, but how changedl