EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 497, 27 October 1871, Page 1 (Supplement)

EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENA.

The following startling account is contained in a letter from Lord Lindsay to a London journal, His lordship’s name, which is appended, is one well known in literary and scientific circles “On the evening of the 11th Jnly, 1 was showing some experiments in my laboratory to Lord Adare, Mr. Bergheim, Mr. Horae and my brother in law. It occurred to me to try|if Home was able to see a magnet in the dark. I asked Mr. Home, and he expressed himself willing to try the experiment. 1 then took into one of my rooms, which was totally dark, a large permanent magnet, and having removed the armature, I placed it on the floor near the wall, at a considerable distance from the door. Mr. Home was then brought into the roam, and remained standing at the door for some moments. He said that he saw some sort of a light on the floor in a corner of the room, and immediately said to me—‘ Give me your hau l, and I will show you exactly where I see it.’ He then led me straight across the room,and without the least hesitation stooped down and placed my hand on the magnet I have b»en trying for nrore than two years to get a satisfactory result in this experiment, but hitherto with only doubtful srtccess. The instrument used was a large compound magnet, capable of sustaining about 201b. On another occasion I was sitting with Mr. Home and Lord Adare and a cousin of his. During the sitting Mr Home went into a trance, and in that state was carried out of the window in the front room next to where we were, and was brought in at our window. The distance between the windows was about nine feet six inches, and there was not the least foothold between them, nor was there more than a twelve inch projection toeach window, which served as a ledge to put flowers on. We heard the window in the next room lifted up, and almost immediately after we saw Home floating in the air outside our window. The moon was shining full into the room ; my back was to the light, and I saw the shadow on the wall of the window-sill, and Home’s feet about six niches above it. He remained in this position for a tew seconds, then raised the window and glided into the room feet foremost, and sat down. Lord Adare then went into the next room to look at the window from which he had been carried. It was raised about eighteen inches, and he expressed his wonderhow Mr. Home had been taken through so narrow an aperture. Home said (still in a trance), ‘ I will show you,’ and then, with his back to the window, he leaned back, and was shot out of the aperture head first, with the body rigid, and then returned quite quiet y. The window is about seventy feet from the ground. I very much doubt whether any skilful tight rope dancer would like to attempt a feat of this description, where the only means of crossing would be by a perilous leap, or being borne over in such a manner as I have described, placing the question of the light aside. Lindsay. 14th July, 1871.