Herr Caspari left me, after agreeing to assist me in the further examination of these phenomena; and the New Year coming in found me in busy thought how to elicit, through variations of Herr Caspari’s experiments, some important physical evidence as to the reality and agency of Von Reichenbach’s Od-force.
In ten days we have succeeded in disentangling the confused results which attended our first experiments; and as I see no likelihood of extending them at present in any new direction, I present them to the reader now, as complete as I can at present render them. I have used the term “divining-ring,” partly because I have a vague idea of having seen Herr Caspari’s first facts adverted to in some publication under that name; partly because it is really thus far deserved:—If you place a piece of silver on a table, and lay over the table and it an unfolded silk pocket-handkerchief, you can discover where the silver lies by trying with the suspended ring each part of the surface. The ring will only oscillate when held over the silver. But now I have to substitute another name for the sake of precision.
A fragment of any thing, of any shape, suspended either by silk or cotton thread, the other end of which is wound round the first joint either of the forefinger or of the thumb, I will call an Odometer. The length of the thread does not matter. It must be sufficient to allow the ring, or whatever it is, to reach to about half an inch from the table, against which you rest your arm or elbow to steady your hand. If there be nothing on the table, the ring or its equivalent soon becomes stationary. Then you test the powers of the odometer by placing upon the table under it what substances you please. These I would call Od-subjects.
To obtain uniform results with the Odometer, it is important to attach the sustaining thread always to the same finger of the same hand,—best to the forefinger of the right hand. It is evident that this rule is not to prevent the experimenter, when he has succeeded in thus obtaining a series of consistent results, from trying what will come of substituting his other digits for that first employed.
I have armed the odometer with gold, silver, lead, zinc, iron, copper; with coal, bone, horn, dry wood, charcoal, cinder, glass, soap, wax, sealing-wax, shell-lac, sulphur, earthenware. As Od-subjects I have likewise tried most of the substances above enumerated. All do not go equally well, or perform exactly the same feats, with each odometer. For example, an odometer of dry wood remains stationary over gold; while it oscillates with great vivacity over glass. The respective habitudes of different odometers to different Od-subjects is one of the simplest points of investigation which the facts I am narrating suggest.
A gold ring with a plain stone in it was the first odometer which I employed, and it is one of the most largely available. And gold forms in general the most successful Od-subject. Sulphur likewise displays very lively motions in the odometer. But the material which I finally employed to verify the following phenomena was shell-lac, a portion a full inch long, broader towards the lower end, then cut to be lancet-shaped. The odometer moves more sluggishly with some than with others, and in the same hand on different days; and doubtless is capable of manifesting a greater variety of effects than I have yet elicited from it. I can only pledge myself to the certainty of my being always now able to obtain with the shell-lac odometer all the results mentioned in the XXVII. experiments which first follow. Over rock-crystal, however, the shell-lac odometer acts very feebly; but a glass odometer moves with brilliant vivacity. I would besides advise the reader to try a gold-ring odometer, in preference, for experiments X., XI., XII., XIII.
Then here are the results:—
I. Odometer (we will suppose armed with shell-lac) held over three sovereigns heaped loosely together to form the Od-subject; the odometer suspended from the right forefinger of a competent person of the male sex. Result—Longitudinal oscillations.
II. Let the experimenter, continuing experiment I., take with his unengaged hand the hand of a person of the opposite sex. Result—Transverse oscillations of the odometer.
III. Then, the experiment being continued, let a person of the sex of the experimenter take and hold the unengaged hand of the second party. Result—Longitudinal oscillations of the odometer.