The San Francisco call., 1909-11-28
AFTER UNIQUE EXPERIMENTS, THE
GREAT ENGLISH SCIENTIST JOINS
WITH W. T. STEAD IN V0ICING POSI-
TIVE CONVICTIONS :: :, = :;

known outside the immediate circle of
his acquaintances. OF course. any man
who boldly announces such daring
theories as have been set forth by Sir
William must be prepared for an
avalanche of skeptical opposition. But
the same statement applies TO any
pioneer in the field of human endeavor
whose vision into the future carries
him farther than the vista outlined in
the ordinary perspective.
When Sir William Crookes announced
his remarkable theory that matter ex.
listed in the ultragaseous, or radian.
form, the scientific world laughed him
to scorn. When he further stated that
matter and force appeared to merge
into each other, another howl of de.
rision went UP from the learned elite.
The discovery of radium and the Won
derful action of the X-rays have, how
ever, turned the tables on these soof-
fers. and now Sir william Crookes en-
joys his triumph in the general appro-
baton, not only of his fellow scientists,
but OF the world at large
What is it, then, that brought Sir
William Crookes to his firm convictions
on spiritualism? Mainly, the series of
remarkable Investigations which he
conducted a few years ago and which
he has continued in recent times. His
early Investigations took the form of
a series of scientific experiments con-
Quoted with various mediums, notable
among whom was D. D. Home
1t has been said time and again that
Home proved a fraud, and that Sir
William was deceived by clever leger-
dermain. As a matter of fact, how
ever. Sir William Crookes subjected
Home to some of the most rigid scien-
tifc tests imaginable.
One of these tests consisted in sus-
pending an accordion in a cage consist
ing of hoops forming drum receptacle,
around which were wrapped so yards
of copper wire. The cage was so high
that it just fitted under Sir Williams
dining room table, so close, in fact,
that no one could put his hand in
over the top. The wires of the cage
were connected up to powerful bat
teries. so that any one attempting to
manipulate the mechanism would re-
ceive a shock quite capable of sus-
pending spiritualistic phenomena of
the trick variety. Into this cage
the scientist introduced the accordion
Sir William describes this expert
ment in his own words as follows:
Very soon the accordion was seen by
those on each side to be waving about
in a somewhat curious manner; then
sounds came from 1t and finally sew
eral notes We're played in succession.
While this was going on. my assistant
went under the table and reported that
the accordion was expanding and con-
tracing Presently the accordion was
seen by those on the other side to move
about. oscillating. going round and
round the cage and playing at the
same time"
When Sir William passed a powerful
electric current around the cage it
seemed to add to the phenomena rather
than to retard it. II and two of the
otnerS present said Sir william, fur-
ther describing this incident, saw the
accordion distinctly floating about in
side the cage with no visible support
Tsis was repeated a second time after
a short interval
Another remarkable phenomenon
raenifested under strict test conditions
was the disturbance of a balance care
fully adjusted by Sir William Crookes
himself. A board WIS arranged per-
fectly horizontal and the mediums
hands were placed one and half inches
from the extremity. Without his
touching this board it was made to
move, showing a weight of 40 pounds.
The mediums hands and feet were
kept under control by Sir William and