come endowed with exalted perceptions. Dr. Alex. Bain states that "in the delirium of fever the sense of hearing sometimes becomes extraordinarily acute, and that among the premonitory symptoms of brain disease has been noticed an unusual delicacy of the sense of sight." May we not also bring forward certain well-attested examples of that species of second sight which refers to passing but distant events? The great mass of such evidence may doubtless be with advantage rejected, but even so it is hard to assure ourselves that no residuum of truth remains. It may well be that there are many more or less occult avenues by which intelligence is capable of being conveyed. Is it possible to arrive at a conception of the nature of any of them? Where a multitude is gathered together, an inner consciousness or conviction, a thrill of pleasure or of pain, of exultation or of fear, will sometimes irresistibly permeate the minds of all. It is so in a marked degree in a large audience, when a fervent speaker or a singer holds every being spellbound, and by sympathy is perfectly conscious that he does so.

A well-marked example of this once arose most obviously on Lord's Ground in the year 1870, when the writer, then a Cambridge undergraduate, was one of a large multitude watching the final struggle of the University Match. There was a feeling that any excitement over the game was at an end, for Oxford was winning all too easily. In fact, their side needed only four runs to secure victory, while they had still three wickets to fall. Moreover, one batsman, Hill, was well set; and as Cobden, the Cambridge bowler, commenced a fresh "over," justified the general anticipation by making a fine boundary hit to finish the match. Somehow, however, the ball never reached the boundary, for Bourne, fielding for Cambridge, managed with

one hand to partially check the ball, so that only one run was made, and the next ball the same fielder caught Hill's partner. At this the interest of the onlookers, which had grown languid, at once revived, and when Cobden with his next and third ball clean bowled the fresh man in, the multitude drew one deep breath. One wicket to fall and

three runs to make. If Hill could only take the next ball! That would be the feeling of every partisan of Oxford; but Hill was at the other wicket, and as the last batsman went to his wicket there came on each and all an overmastering conviction of what was about to happen.

Of course the wicket went down with that next ball, every one knew it would!

This would be spoken of as a case of so-called panic, or nervous tension, which irresistibly spread from end to end of the whole concourse. But it would seem that in like manner intelligence of actual fact, though unspoken, can pass from unit to unit of a throng. and so traverse many miles with mar vellous speed. A case of this seems to have occurred on the occasion of the fatal accident to Mr. Huskisson at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Mr. Grundy, already referred to, was a witness of the fact, and describes it thus. The whole thirty miles of railroad was "lined double and treble deep with carriages, to say nothing of the standing multitudes. The accident occurred midway between the two towns. A little crowd collected by the side of the line, and there was a murmur 'Huskisson is run over.' Then the story spread, travelling along the thousands with electric speed. Another instant, and the engine, released from its load, dashes madly past at a speed of fortyfive miles per hour. It took only twenty minutes for that engine to reach Liverpool in search of surgical

help, and yet the rumor of the accident was there before it."

Now it is inconceivable that any intelligible message could have been transmitted along the line by word of mouth in anything like such a short period, so as to proceed ahead of the advancing engine. A moment's consideration will prove this. The engine was going at twice the top speed of an expert runner. Now watch a hundred yards' race at any athletic game, and as the racers start think what chance would there be of conveying a message along the line of bystanders in anything like the short period-only ten seconds-in which the course is covered. The feat would be clearly impossible, moreover it is questionable if any precise message would ever be passed along in this way. The experiment has been tried times out of number in a game in which we have all taken part. A ring of persons is formed and one of the number whispers a definite remark into the ear of the individual on his left, who, still in a whisper, passes it on. Then it is found that by the time the message is poured into the right ear of the first speaker it is strangely different from that which he himself issued.

Leaving here the discussion of such modes of telegraphy as are alike recondite in their operation, and perhaps only vague in their result, we may pass on to more intelligible methods which have been adopted by primitive races and which may be found forestalling and fairly vying with perfected methods of our own to-day.

That the heliograph is no new machine should need no telling, but it may not be known how efficient the rudest instrument of the kind may prove among those whose brains are subtle, and hand and eye are rendered cunning by constant practice. Possibly the word heliotrope no longer suggests an optical instrument; but under

It

this name Gauss, nearly a hundred years ago, introduced an apparatus designed to aid in long-range surveying, and adopted largely in America. The principle involved was that of directing a small beam of sunlight truly to a distant station occupied by an assistant observer; and it was found that a flash from off a plane mirror, measuring only a square inch, could be seen across seven miles, while larger but still extremely portable mirrors could flash across greatly extended ranges; and thus it was evident that long-distance signalling was a possibility with a no more elaborate instrument, given only the necessary sunshine and sufficient dexterity in manipulation. would follow then, as a matter of course, that such a simple and efficient mode of communication would come to be adopted by native races who would benefit by such a means, and who dwell in lands whose heritage is unbroken sunshine. Thus we learn from Galton and others that flashing signals of this nature are commonly adopted by the bushmen in the North American prairies, and by Indian warriors of the wild West. It is said again that the fleet of Alexander the Great, when sailing for India, was piloted along the Persian Gulf by heliograph signals flashed from the shore. We may surmise that it is to this or a similar mode of telegraphy that Henry Cornelius Agrippa refers in a learned treatise published in Antwerp early in the sixteenth century. An earnest examiner into all branches of occult philosophy, we find him describing in vague though not unintelligible terms an optical contrivance for transmitting long-distance messages. "Which art," he says, "of declaring secrets is indeed very profitable for towns and cities that are besieged, being a thing which Pythagoras long since did often do, and which is not unknown to some in these days, I will not

except myself." Be this as it may, we find, as we might expect, that the natives of Arabia, earliest among practised observers, and availing themselves of their open country and cloudless skies, had learned at least nine hundred years ago to heliograph intelligence from one city to another.

In higher altitudes and in lands where from physical causes the agency of sunshine would be less available, other ancient but highly efficient methods are found to be practised. Following tradition, if not actual history, let us go back three thousand years. The last days of the Siege of Troy are come, and the commander-in-chief of the conquering hosts undertakes to tell, or rather telegraph, the first tidings of the fall of the city to his lady away at Mycenae, a direct distance truly of only two hundred and fifty miles; but the breadth of the Ægean lay between, thus rendering the task one of extreme difficulty and labor. Yet we are to regard it as having been accomplished, and, moreover, in the space of a single night. Let us see how the feat, finely conceived throughout, works out in the tale of "Eschylus." The moment having arrived, the first signalman retires back on the mountain height of Ida, adding to distance, but gaining greatly in elevation, and thence sends his gleam across seventy miles to a hill top in Lemnos, a possible task enough, irrespective of the fact that Vulcan had his own workshop there, and was supposed to have lent a hand. But now the next nearest practicable point towards the mainland is Euboea, across a gap of ninety nautical miles, which would render any earth-born flame, if raised on no great eminence, invisible by reason of the mere convexity of the globe. It is here then that the scheme is grandly engineered and rendered strictly feasible, some of our classical critics notwithstanding.

Away on the seaboard of Macedonia,

forty miles to the northeast, and so more remote, the far peak of Mount Athos rears itself near seven thousand feet into so-called cloud-land, only no clouds are there, and ready to hand is the very material to create the fastest and fiercest flame-the pine logs of the mountain slopes. Justly might the dramatist describe such a furious blaze. as it climbed far into the sky as a "golden light like a sun." All difficulties of a physical nature would now vanish. The distance from Mount Athos to the heart of Euboea is about a hundred geographical miles—a giant stretch truly-but from an elevation of nearly seven thousand feet there is across sea a known visible horizon of some eighty-five miles; and if an eminence of only about one thousand two hundred feet could be found in Euboea, then there would be established direct vision from height to height across the whole distance; and such a moderate height is surely attainable on Mount Makistos, the tallest peak of a hilly land. From this point the selection of heights, completing eight in all, was a simple matter, and, as the story tells, suitable fuel was found abundantly in the scrub of the hillside.

Southward of Mount Ida, but on the same mainland, we come to the hilly country of Judæa; and here, five hundred years later, troublous times are imminent, and we find the Jews alert to "set up a sign of fire" on the approach of the expected foe.

Only two hundred miles westward, however, of the line of Grecian beacon heights, in a wilder and more broken land, we find a totally different mode of native signalling in vogue. We are now in Albania, and the country has become too mountainous to admit of the use of beacons, whose light could find no ready path through mere forests of lofty peaks. But here the steep mountain slopes lend themselves to another and more efficient transmission

of messages, namely, by actual speech; for the human voice, trained by practice and pitched in suitable tones, will bridge the deep ravines and travel far down resounding valleys, so as to be not only distinctly heard, but readily interpreted by the hill dwellers, whose ears are no less well trained than their voice.

Herein may lie more than half the mystery of the mode whereby the Kaffirs and others in the late war seemed to have conveyed information. These were credited with being able to shout intelligibly to their fellows from kopje to kopje in a manner which others could scarcely grasp, and still less imitate. It seems to have been partly, but by no means entirely, a trick of the voice. Here through all time they had needed, and thus had acquired, a language which could be framed in mere shouts. It would be far otherwise with our own tongue. A British drill sergeant might make his voice, as a shout, penetrate as far as a Kaffir stripling, but the intelligible words which he could thus convey over, say, a mile of distance would be strictly confined to the limited technical vocabulary of the barrack yard. The natives, on the contrary, we must suppose, could converse volubly in their own wild yells at the same range. In this case, however, the ear unquestionably becomes as practised as the voice, a fact which may be well noted at home. In agricultural districts, where fellow laborers often have to converse with or direct one another at a distance, it will be found that the ear of the countryman will, as a rule, interpret far shouting very much more readily than those who, though they may be intellectually superiors, are not accustomed to discipline their attention in the same special manner. The same remark applies where noise or other disturbance interferes with easy hearing. An example of this was forced

on the notice of the writer lately during a somewhat lengthy period of enforced leisure at the Great Central Station at Nottingham. Busy trains were constantly arriving and departing, and the general turmoil, added to the hissing, panting, and shrieking of the locomotives all confined within the span roof, often rendered it exceedingly hard to exchange conversation with a companion, even when mouth and ear were in the closest proximity. Yet the officials of the station could apparently, with no extraordinary effort, make themselves understood at half the length of the platform.

Obviously the last-mentioned modes of telegraphy are not well adapted for secrecy. A flashing signal of the nature of the heliograph could be equally well detected by an outsider stationed anywhere along the track of the telltale beam. The beacon light could be seen the whole country round. The long shout could become the property of any trained listener within range; but circumstances will arise where it would be imperative that distant communication should be conveyed not only with despatch, but with perfect secrecy; and even here native ingenuity has proved fully equal to the task.

In the wilds of the Amazon valley the savage tribes of the Catuquinaru Indians have through centuries lived and died on their native soil, but within ever narrowing limits, harassed eternally by one ceaseless cause of alarm-the dread of the white man's approach. Generation after generation they have had to be on the alert to strike their habitations and pitch them again on some fresh ground where, however, they must needs through every hour of the day literally keep an ear open for any hostile advance. Under pressure of this necessity they have devised and handed down a mode of communicating from settlement to settlement by a species of rude but

efficient telephone, of which some account supplied by Dr. Bach has been published in the Geographical Journal. It appears that the particular group of Indians visited were divided into four sections, located about a mile asunder, and all in a true line north and south. In each section there was a signalling apparatus carefully constructed, and of such peculiar nature as to give the idea that a savage belief in charms and enchantments is here blended with the elaboration of a strictly mechanical contrivance, involving true scientific principles. A hard palm wood stem, about sixteen inches across and some three feet long, was hollowed out, and its lower half filled with layers, which, beginning with the lowest, consist of fine sand, wood fragments, bone fragments, and powdered mica respectively. Above this the stem is left hollow for a space of ten inches, above which again are placed in succession layers of hide, wood, and hard rubber, the last of these closing the aperture. A hole is now opened in the ground about three feet deep and four feet across, and filled in again to a height of eighteen inches with coarse sand well tamped. On this the stem is planted, and made firm round the sides with fragments of wood, raw hide, and resins of various woods, all finished off with a covering of hard rubber. It will be seen that the stem, with its appur tenances, thus stands up some fifteen inches above the ground level, and all that is now needed to complete the instrument is a wooden club or striker covered with hard rubber and raw hide. There is one of these instruments hidden in each malocca or habitation. appears that the instruments are en rapport with each other, and when struck with the club the neighboring ones to the north and south, if not above a mile distant, respond to or echo the blow. To this an Indian an

"It

swers by striking the instrument in the malocca with which it is desired to communicate; which blow in turn is echoed by the instruments originally struck. Each malocca has its own series of signals. So enclosed is each instrument in the malocca that when standing outside and near the building it is difficult to hear a blow, but nevertheless this is heard distinctly in the next malocca, a mile distant, in the manner indicated. The chief gave me an example of signalling. With a prolonged interval he struck the instrument twice with a club, which, as I understood, was to indicate attention, or that a conference was desired. This was responded to by the same instrument as a result of a single blow given by some one on the next apparatus nearly a mile distant. Then commenced a long conversation which I could not comprehend."

It has been suggested that the transmission of sounds may be due to some rock stratum serving to convey the vibrations of the blows, which, being shut in, are not transported through the air. Prompted by this suggestion the writer, in conjunction with Mr. J. N. Maskelyne, carried out some simple but instructive trials. Ordinary sounds and well-planted field gateposts were made use of, and were well suited for an initial experiment. These consisted of solid and seasoned oak timber, sunk some feet in the ground, which had been well tamped both beneath and around. One of these was selected and struck in various ways with instruments of various weights and substances, while a number of observers stationed at other adjacent posts listened attentively, closing one ear and applying the other to different parts of their respective posts. The experiment was varied and repeated many times, but in all cases results were wholly negative, no vibrations being perceptible; and the conclusion arrived at was