The science of life : fully illustrated in tone and line and including many diagrams

BORDERLAND SCIENCE

and a trained entomologist. He has been this difficulty is, as it were, noted and an convinced of the survival of a human _ ectoplasmiclarynx appears. But how Walter personality after death by his study of her, gets his labial, dental and palatal sounds and his convictions have been given prominence in Nature, the organ of science in English throughout the world (August 18th, 1928). We will not enter into the details of this stormy tangle ; we will merely state simply and plainly certain things we are asked to believe in accepting the good faith and soundness of the Margery displays. That statement goes to the root of the professed scepticism with which all this mediumistic business is regarded by the majority of educated people. The personality of Walter is recognized by a number of characteristic things. In his life it seems there was a certain lack of glossiness in his manners, and in these séances he has used terms like ‘“‘ damned fool” and “bastard” (applied to the incredulous Houdini), showing the unmitigated survival of his distinctive quality. His voice is heard from the air from a point about ten inches in front of the medium’s stomach, and is said to be recognizably his voice and no other. It is not produced by Margery. It is “ masculine, fairly loud and slightly hoarse.” Whistling is also one of Walter’s gifts. In life Walter produced his voice by means of his lungs, his larynx and the cavities of his head, and when he whistled he used his lips. When they changed his voice changed. When his throat was dry, when he had a cold, when his- lungs failed him the difference was immediately apparent in the sounds he made. ‘The words he used depended upon the movements of his lips, tongue, teeth, and so forth. We know of no means by which a human voice can be produced, in the first instance, within a foot of a lady’s waist, and say things without the activity of normal speech-organs. And Walter’s te a a speech-organs ceased to exist at his igs. 333 and 334. Two flashlight photographs of teledeath. The instrument was broken. plasm produced by “‘ Margery’ from her mouth. But the voice is still heard. The Note also a connecting cord of teleplasm going to her ear. air is thrown into vibrations—by what? Why was it ever necessary to have with this thing, or what winds from the pit that apparatus ? Could Walter have talked stress its vocal cords remains to be explained. distinctly without a larynx or a palate It would be easier to understand if he produring his life? In some of these séances duced an ectoplasmic gramophone record.

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