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 A WORLD OF WONDERS.
 
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 BOSTON ♦
 
 A 
 
 WORLD OF WONDERS ; 
 
 OR 
 
 DIVERS DEVELOPMENTS, 
 
 SHOWING THE 
 
 THOROUGH TRIUMPH 
 
 ANIMAL magnetism' 
 
 IN 
 
 NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY THE 
 
 POWER OF PREVISION 
 
 IN 
 
 MRS. MATILDA FOX, 
 
 AND THE 
 
 POINT OF THE PE^XIL, 
 
 BY 
 
 . . . D. C. JOHNSTON. 
 
 BY JOEL R. PEABOUY, M. 
 
 Fellow of the College of 'Pothecaries. 
 
 " Wise mOT suffer, good men grieve, 
 Knaves invent, and fools believe ; 
 Help U3, ye Powers 1 send aid unto us, 
 Or knaves and fools will quite undo us. 
 
 Tliird Edition. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY ROBERT S. DAVIS, 
 
 No. 77 Washington Street. 
 
 1838.
 
 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1838, by 
 
 Robert S, Davis, 
 in the Clerk's office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
 
 TO THE PEOPLE OF THE 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen^ — 
 
 Those already believing in the 
 phenomena of Animal Magnetism, of 
 Avhich this production expressly treats, 
 will have no occasion for reading it 
 to confirm their faith. Persons not 
 open to cdnviction, can derive no ben- 
 efit from the developments Avhich 
 characterize the memoh\ 
 
 It is ardently desired that Col. 
 Stone, of New- York, will not prefix 
 notes, or add an appendix to any of.
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 the numerous editions through which 
 this volume is predestined to run; 
 and lastly, the author presents his best 
 respects to the fraternity of poets, 
 humbly beseeching them not to make 
 a theatrical spectacle of his scientific 
 efforts, till after the termination of 
 the Seminole War. 
 
 JOEL R. PEABODY. 
 
 Boston, February, 1838.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Chapter. Page. 
 
 I. — Miscellaneous Developments. 5 
 
 II. — A Philosophical Experiment. 24 
 
 III.— Interesting Discoveries. 36 
 
 IV. — Something Surprising. 47 
 
 V. — Researches in the Mounds, 55 
 
 VI. — Pathological Inquiries. 67 
 
 VII. — Peeps at great People. 78 
 
 VIII.— Wonders of other Worlds. 87 
 
 IX.— Extraordinary Sights. 105 
 
 X.— Unthought of Matters. 126 
 
 XI.— A Jaunt to the Sun. 134 
 
 XII. — Local Learning. 146
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 Notwithstanding the contradictory state- 
 ments of physicians in relation to the phenomena 
 of Animal Magnetism, and in the face of that 
 most potent of all engines, the ridicule and mis- 
 representations of its foes, the writer of the fol- 
 lowing pages has felt it his duty to present the 
 community the results of his own observations in 
 this splendid field of philosophy, with a hope that 
 candid inquirers, solicitous for the progress of 
 truth, will give him an impartial reading. 
 
 For more than a year after Mons. Poyen had 
 began to excite the public attention by his lec- 
 tures, I had so little confidence in the preten- 
 tions of magnetizers, that I scarcely read a para- 
 graph of all that was reported of his extraordina- 
 ry powers in this newly-discovered domain. In- 
 deed, the innumerable and surprising exhibitions 
 I
 
 6 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 in Europe, as well as in New England, since 
 the revivificaiion of Animal Magnetism from the 
 profonnd slumber into which it was thrown by 
 our countryman, Dr. Franklin, and his learned 
 associates of France, did not even begin to inter- 
 est me ; nor, in fact, had I any confidence in the 
 various reports, till an accidental circumstance, 
 in itself, not very important, completely changed 
 my views. If I was at one time a decided, un- 
 compromisirjg sceptic, the change wrought on 
 my mind to make me a believer, nay, a warm 
 disciple and a magnetizer, was a slow process.. 
 
 After having had many personal interviews 
 with the magneiizers of Rhode Island, I am fully 
 persuaded of their honest endeavors to promote 
 the cause of philanthropy as well as science ; yet 
 I have not been influenced to receive anything on 
 hearsay; on the contrary, alone, as it were, 
 unaided by the experience of others, and solely 
 intent on the momentous question, Is there any 
 deception or not, in all this 1 — The results of my 
 inquiry are now given to the world. 
 
 Surely, no person of common honesty could 
 peruse Dr. Belden's narrative of Jane C. Rider, 
 and discredit it. Nor is it possible to be in com- 
 pany with Miss Bracket, and not at once discov- 
 er that she is an abused, injured woman. Her
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. / 
 
 powers are of a marvellous character, and be- 
 cause they are so, and but a few or no cases on 
 record are precisely like it, tlie whole coun- 
 try, forsooth, joins in the persecution, and pro- 
 nounce her an impostor. 
 
 Again, — The lady in Stanstead, Lower Cana- 
 da, whose faculty of seeing through opaque bo- 
 dies, however dense or thick, was at first disput- 
 ed, but was ultimately completely established.* 
 
 As before remarked, I have been alone in my 
 investigations, so far as it regards the presence 
 of those prepared, by their education and sci- 
 ence, to analyze the subject. For a long time I 
 have carefully watched, and patiently listened to 
 the accounts of others ; still, had not my own 
 eyes, and my own individual understiinding been 
 perfectly satisfied, I should Jiot have ventured 
 upon tlie liazardous enterprise of appearing in 
 the character of an author. I neither court no- 
 
 * Perhaps the reader is not aware that this case quite 
 surpassed ihe somnambulists of Providence. None of 
 those can perceive objects beyond the ordinary compass of 
 human vision, unless the soul leaves the body with one of 
 the five senses in train, viz. the eye-sight. Mrs. Carr, on 
 the other hand, reniai;:cil, both body and spirit, on terra 
 firma,— lieing abundantly able to see at all distances, and 
 through all bodies, however compact, thick, dark or ob- 
 scurelv located.
 
 8 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 toriety in this way, nor am I afraid to relate 
 what is true, because it is a novelty. 
 
 I am well aware of the gross impositions which 
 have of late been practised by unprincipled ad- 
 venturers,* with the expectation of realizing a 
 profit in wholesaling falsehood. We are not to 
 give credit to all the extravagant declarations of 
 somnambulists, whose revelations are nothing 
 more than the workings of a vivid imagination. 
 
 Many who have been operated upon by hon- 
 est, scientific magnetizers, have been, to a cer- 
 tain extent, self-deceived. Such, however, is the 
 constitution of the mind, that, under novel modes 
 
 * Perhaps all my readers have not heard that a fellow 
 by the name of Durant, a rope-maker, of Jersey city, has 
 attempted to blast the untainted reputation of several ex- 
 cellent ladies, by trying to make out that they were mag- 
 netic impostors. He is not to be credited on a single 
 point. About the year 1830, this same popinjay made a 
 ridiculous show of himself in an air-balloon, in which he 
 ascended from Boston common, in the presence of more 
 than fifty boys and loafers. The voyage terminated at 
 sea, some where near Portland, where he was found up 
 10 his knees in water. It was fully understood, by those 
 who knew him best, that ihe great height to which he was 
 elevated by a bag of wind, something over ten rods, per- 
 pendicular altitude, made him giddy, and he fell out of 
 the basket upon his head, which, being cracked before, 
 was quite ruined, as his late publication shows, by the 
 fall.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. \) 
 
 of excitement, the imagination oversteps the 
 boundaries of sober reason, and, in the wildness 
 of unrestrained fancy, verily conceives the crea- 
 tions of its own vagaries to be solid fabrics of 
 reality.* In my intercourse with those suscep- 
 tible to the magnetic touch, 1 liave found some 
 who were affected in one way, and others in an- 
 other; but there has been a uniformity, in cer- 
 tain respects, in the phenomena. 
 
 Being in Boston, in July last, on business 
 which obligred me to remain over six weeks, to 
 dance attendance on a court of law, through 
 the instrumentality of a few friends, who were 
 disposed to make the time pass as pleasantly 
 with me as the circumstance of being at the 
 mercy of a party of Boston lawyers would admit, 
 — the veriest sharks on the continent, — 1 culti- 
 vated an agreeable acquaintance with many of 
 the most eminent physicians of the city. 
 
 In the course of occasional conversation at 
 
 * Some beautiful thoughts upon nothing at all, suppos- 
 ed, by their author, to be deeply metaphysical, may be 
 
 seen in Dr. B 's latest miscarriage, — The Intluence 
 
 of Religion, &c. For the profundity of his ignorance, in 
 anatomy, a School of Medicine have given him a place 
 in the conclave of jackasses, called, by way of eminence. 
 Faculty. 
 
 1*
 
 10 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 the house of Dr. B., distinguished for his ad- 
 vanced standing in the profession, though nnodest 
 and retiring as a child, we spoke of Animal 
 Magnetism, then exceedingly rife ; and, as on 
 all former occasions, I at once made myself 
 quite merry with all its advocates. For the first 
 time, to my extreme mortification, I had step- 
 ped upon forbidden ground ; the Dr. answering 
 me with a singular air of gravity, that it was too 
 late in the day to offer opposition to the progress 
 of a well-established science.* He had not cyily 
 been in close correspondence with Mons. Poyen, 
 but had subscribed for the Nantucket Requirer, 
 under the editorial charge of the Hon. Mr. Jeks, 
 which he considered to be the only independent 
 paper in America. He, the Hon. Mr. Jeks, was 
 a firm supporter of the cause, and a man compe- 
 
 * Dr. B. exercises the same talismanic influence over his 
 patients that he maintains over the juniors of the profes- 
 sion. The acuteness of his pathological acquirements 
 have long been the admiration of the better classes of so- 
 ciety. It was this gentleman who discovered a tape-worm 
 in an alderman's leg. In his youth, he commenced the 
 practice of medicine in the metropolis of New England, 
 under every species of discouragement, but finally tri 
 umphed over them all. To his genius are farriers indebt- 
 ed for the beautiful idea of docking colts in utero, so that, 
 post partem, they will ever make an admirable appearance.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 11 
 
 tent to fathom the whole arcanum of the learn- 
 ed. 
 
 Since then, I have looked into the merits of 
 the Nantucket paper, and am happy to find it all 
 my friend had the independence to represent. 
 While the Boston presses, to a fault, were either 
 silent, when the very atmosphere carried the in- 
 telligence, or disposed to cast a halo of ridicule 
 around those devoted to philosophical specula- 
 tions, involving the truth or falsity of Animal 
 Magnetism, the Nantucket people manifested 
 the noblest ardor in the cause of truth and hu- 
 manity, by giving their entire patronage to the 
 Requirer — which never would have been done 
 with such unparalleled unanimity, had the eru- 
 dite editor shown the least unwillingness to sus- 
 tain the dignity of the Island in this particu- 
 lar.* 
 
 * Mr. Jeks is an uncommonly laborious scholar. It is 
 rising of sixty years since he first became extensively 
 known throughout the United States by a masterly trea- 
 tise on whale-oil, in which he humanely proposed to take 
 those mighty animals by bowlings— or, a slip-noose over 
 their tails, instead of cruelly butchering them with har- 
 poons. When brought aloncf-side, the sperm was to be 
 drauTi from the skull through their ears, by an air-pump. 
 Being exceedingly corpulent, but restrained from taking 
 as much exercise as a due performance of his bodily func-
 
 12 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 Through the instrumentality of Dr. B., I was 
 brought in contact with other professional gen- 
 tlemen of the city, who, as a general rule, were 
 disposed to look favorably upon the all-engross- 
 ing topic. Among others, Dr. E. was not the 
 least conspicuous. He had not only had sever- 
 al patients who were natural somnambulists, but 
 he had ascertained that he could actually pro- 
 duce the somnambulic slumber. A reference 
 was made to some half dozen families in which 
 he practised, for evidence of his success. This 
 was not all, — I was invited, to my great delight, 
 to witness, in persona3, an exhibition of his con- 
 trolling power over the senses of others.* 
 
 By an express invitation, on a sunny afternoon 
 near the first of August, accompanied by Dr. B., 
 I called on a fashionable family, in a fashionable 
 section of the city, to have an introduction to a 
 
 tions require, he has resorted, within the last year, to 
 playing a hurdy-gurdy, on which he is without a rival. 
 Vide, — his proposals for publishing monthly, by subscrip- 
 tion, the Psychodinamist, or the Bulletin of Animal Mag- 
 netism in America. 
 
 * No one would ever suspect that this accomplished phy- 
 sician could be duped ; he is too well guarded by the nat- 
 ural endowments, vulgarly called moiher-wit. The sto- 
 ry told at his expense, how he purchased a horse with a 
 wooden tail, is not true.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 13 
 
 Mrs, Matilda Fox, who was reported to possess 
 second sight — or faculty of exercising a tele- 
 scopic vision. 
 
 The Scotch notion, that a person having the 
 gift of second sight can foretel events, as they 
 are predestined to occur from the beginning of 
 time, belongs only to the lower orders. Intelli- 
 gent, reflecting persons, in that country, enter- 
 tain no such opinions; but, that the individual 
 so blessed can embrace an unlimited field of vis- 
 ion with his natural eyes, has never been ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 I have come to the conclusion that second 
 sight and Animal Magnetism are essentially the 
 same, because the phenomena are precisely of 
 the same character. There is also a disease 
 known by the term catalepsy, which completely 
 prostrates the muscular system, the will not be- 
 ing able to exercise the slightest influence over 
 the nerves of volition while the paroxysm con- 
 tinues. During a continuance of a fit, a fact fa- 
 miliar to every practitioner of medicine, the 
 mind roams, as it were, with unrestrained free- 
 dom, apparently disembodied. Now the phe- 
 nomena in these instances are exactly like those 
 in the other cases. 
 
 Dr. B. was quite happy in making all at ease
 
 14 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 with each other, which gave me an opportunity 
 of saying that curiosity had prompted me to seek 
 the interview. In doing it, however, I had not 
 the slightest confidence in the stories related to 
 me of her prevision. 
 
 It is unnecessary to advert to the various top- 
 ics of conversation discoursed upon, from one pe- 
 riod to another, while my intercourse continued 
 with Mrs. Fox's polite and agreeable family cir- 
 cle. My obligations are acknowledged for the 
 hundredth time. 
 
 A history of the discovery of the miraculous 
 endowment of clairvoyance in this city, is sub- 
 stantially as follows : — 
 
 Some time in March last, the discovery 
 was first made, and in this accidental manner. 
 As Mrs. Fox was resting herself in an easy pos- 
 ture, in a stuffed rocking-chair, at the close of a 
 long evening, a favorite cat, which has long been 
 a family pet, luxuriating, whenever she chose, 
 on the parlor-rug, sprang into the lap of her mis- 
 tress, as she had frequently done before, — but as 
 she never had, till then, — after adjusting herself, 
 commenced licking Mrs. Fox's neck, just over 
 the larynx, that protuberance in front of the 
 throat, known, in anatomical works, as the po- 
 mum adami. Now the larynx is that natural en-
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 15 
 
 largement or vocal box in which those cords vi- 
 brate that produce voice. As the cat was not 
 particularly interrupted, and the sensation being 
 somewhat agreeable, Mrs. Fox was gradually 
 but positively and completely bereft of the pow- 
 er of volition in the short period of a i^tiw 
 minutes. When she essayed to raise one of her 
 hands to thrust the cat away, she was utterly un- 
 able to accomplish it. Her mind was intensely 
 vigorous, and she was perfectly conscious of eve- 
 ry transaction iti the room. In this condition 
 she continued sitting full two hours, apparently 
 all the while in a deep sleep. No one tiiought 
 of awaking her, though seven persons were seat- 
 ed round a centre table, because it was thought 
 by her daughters that she was uncommonly fa- 
 tigued. I must be allowed to digress a little 
 here, in order to portray the character of this 
 excellent woman. 
 
 Mrs. Fox is a lady of cultivated mind, and has 
 always enjoyed the enviable reputation of being 
 both judicious and perfectly consistent in all the 
 various relations of life. From childhood she 
 was strictly educated conformably to the re- 
 quisitions of a rigid system of religious faith : 
 in fact, she belongs to the Orthodox profession. 
 When my acquaintance commenced w ith tiiis la- 
 dy, who is destined to fill no small space in the pub-
 
 16 , MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 lie eye, through future ages, she had passed the 
 forty-seventh year of her age. A fine family of 
 three daughters and two sons, besides her hus- 
 band, Amasa A. Fox, Esq.,* with the exception 
 of a retinue of servants, constituted the house- 
 hold. 
 
 Devoted to the exercise of the domestic duties, 
 living by themselves, within themselves, yet 
 known for their liberality and benevolent exer- 
 tions in all philanthropic movements for meliora- 
 ting the condition of the poor, the distressed or 
 the needy, they would not have been known as 
 they must now necessarily be, to the world, had 
 it not have been for the simple circumstanceof the 
 
 *Amasa A. Fox, referred to by permission, was born at 
 Portsmouth, N. H., but in early life became clerk to a 
 grocer in Green Street. From small means, he has truly 
 been the architect of his fame and fortune. For many 
 years in succession, the enterprise he displayed in manu- 
 facturing lamp-black, will be remembered in Lynn with 
 heart-felt gratitude. Subsequently, he became a candi- 
 date for a standing committee-man, to regulate a city 
 which he had contributed to raise to its present rank and 
 independence. A deputation of shoe-makers presented 
 him an enormous boot, filled with a kind of buttery soup, 
 quaintly enough called, in Nevir Hampshire, Stewed Qua- 
 ker. The boot is still kept as a mammoth trophy, in South 
 Market Street.
 
 MISCELLAxNEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 17 
 
 cat. Mr. Fox has an easy fortune, though he 
 still conducts an extensive maritime trade in the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Nothing, therefore, is more certain than this,— 
 that nothing could be gained by practising a de- 
 ception of any kind. Certainly, for a mother, 
 of all beings, to deliberately impose upon her own 
 children, without the slightest advantage accru- 
 ing from the deceit, is without a precedent. 
 
 These are preliminaries which I am solicitous 
 to have clearly understood, because the credibil- 
 ity of Mrs. Fox must entirely outweigh any slan- 
 derous imputations which hereafter might be 
 suggested, and, also, give a greater degree of 
 character to the facts and observations she has 
 collected in illustration of very many obscure 
 points in geology, meteorology, physics, and as- 
 tronomy. 
 
 But to return. Although the exciting cause 
 of this singular soporific condition of the volun- 
 tary muscles was removed, the cat having qui- 
 etly gone also to sleep on her knee, the active 
 mind of Mrs. Fox was still maintained in a most 
 unaccountable state of exaltation, as agreeable 
 as it was strange. 
 
 As before observed, though totally unable, by 
 an act of the sensorium, to move a limb, — being 
 2
 
 18 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 actually in a cataleptic fit, lier thouglits were to 
 an extraordinary degree active. Instead of sim- 
 ply contemplating the company present, as would 
 seem to have been more natural, she was struck 
 with the new fact, that there were no appreciable 
 limitations to her extent of vision. Whatever 
 she thought of, if it had a tangible existence, 
 why it was instantly seen, not circumscribed in 
 outline and compressed to the dimensions of the 
 parlor, but the proportions were correct. She 
 compared it to a panoramic view ; all was fiesh, 
 vivid, animated. For example: — She has a 
 brother to whom she is tenderly attached, de- 
 voted to the hazardous employment of the seal 
 fishery, whose long absence from port, more than 
 seven months beyond the anticipated termination 
 of the voyage, was a frequent topic of conversa- 
 tion. During the continuance of the catalepsy, 
 the mind happened to revert to him ; when lo ! 
 she saw Captain Swain walking the deck of a 
 low, long black brig.* She was completely 
 overjoyed at the sight, for she seemed to be by 
 his side, and in an extacy of surprise, asked 
 him how he did ? This sleep-talking aroused 
 Mr. Fox and the daughters, one of whom jocose- 
 
 * No sensible person supposes this to be the same vessel 
 seen by the Philadelphia pilots.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 19 
 
 ]y remarking that "mother was dreaming audi- 
 bly." Captain Swain had on shppers, was 
 smoking — and foh'ovved to and fro by a shaggy 
 dog, adorned with a brass collar, bearing the 
 engraved letters, R. S. She saw the initials 
 distinctly ; and that such a dog, having a collar 
 of that description was on board the vesssel in a 
 well-remembered latitude and longitude, has 
 been satisfactorily proved by the log-book. 
 When this marvel was related, the identical 
 brass collar was brought to me for examination. 
 
 Surely, there was neither deception or Cbilu- 
 sion in the matter. It was distinct vision, re- 
 quiring no more effort than any individual ordi- 
 narily makes in contemplating any scene within 
 the compass of ordinary vision. 
 
 Whilst thus apparently following her brother 
 in his movements on deck, she bethought herself 
 that it would be pleasant to take a peep into the 
 cabin. She there saw a young negress, perhaps 
 fifteen years of age, mending a pea-jacket, upon 
 which she fastened on three white bone buttons.* 
 
 * Nothing gives more general satisfaction to an inquir- 
 ing mind, than knowing every minute circumstance. 
 
 Mrs. C is a model in that respect, vide the Oasis, or 
 
 Autobiography of eminent Negroes. The Frugal House- 
 wife is another masterly undertaking, in which items are
 
 20 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 All this did not in the least perturbate Mrs. 
 Fox, for it seemed to her that she was verily 
 present. The coat, buttons and all, are now in 
 the family keeping. On the day and hour these 
 discoveries were made, the vessel was rising of 
 one thousand miles from land. 
 
 Contrary to my first intentions, not to make 
 frequent digressions, I am prompted to throw in 
 a few physiological speculations, for such they 
 may perhaps be considered, though I cannot 
 question the approach of a day when these para- 
 doxical phenomena, these unaccountables in the 
 labyrinth of philosophy, will all be explained 
 upon perfectly lucid, intelligible principles.* 
 
 swollen into astoundins: factsln domestic economy. This 
 lady was the discoverer of a new system of boarding-house 
 tactics, called Staying and Starving. 
 
 * Speaking of digressions, brings to recollection the re- 
 cent colloquial style of conversation in which the parties 
 neither look each other in the face, nor oftener than is 
 particularly required by the code civil, keep to the subject 
 of conversation more than seven seconds. Frequent skips 
 from one topic to another, shows a general acquaintance 
 with the world. Fine specimens of conversation are com- 
 mon in the New-Haven oyster cellars, supposed to have 
 been introduced there by under-graduates, who must have 
 acquired the elements of good breeding from the college 
 faculty, the highest tribunal of propriety in Connecticut.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 21 
 
 Finally, one of the daughters intimated that 
 Iheir mother might be suffering from niglit-mare. 
 Upon this, another stepped up to the chair and 
 gently began to pat Mrs. Fox on one cheek. 
 This changed the order of her sensations, and 
 she at once awoke, conscious as we all are of our 
 relations to things when suddenly roused from a 
 Jethargic sleep. 
 
 As soon as Mrs. Fox could, she related the 
 substance of the foregoing account, averring 
 that it was not a dream, but a reality ; but this 
 only provoked a shout of merry laughter, par- 
 ticularly when Mr. Fox, after his dry manner, 
 said it was a cheap mode of journeying. In 
 describing the thrilling sensation imparted to the 
 entire frame by the cat's tongue, it struck the 
 young ladies as incredible, and byway of experi- 
 ment, they proposed that the cat should exert her 
 magical influences again, that the question might 
 be settled, whether the efforts of the imagination 
 or feline potency had, presto, imparted clair- 
 voyancy to their mother. * 
 
 * It must be kept in mind that Mrs. Fox had been 
 thrown into an artificial cataleptic fit. Catalepsy is a 
 Latin word, derived from the English proper name, cat. 
 Nothing is more common now-a-days with scholars than 
 to Latinize our vernacular. This is very elegant, and 
 shows well for our literature abroad. 
 2»
 
 22 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 
 
 Well, with regard to the digression, it is fa- 
 miliar to anatomists, that, on either side of the 
 larynx, are several extremely delicately-organized 
 nerves, having their origin in the brain, the cen- 
 tre of the nervous system, about which phrenolo- 
 gists know but little, though pretending to much. 
 These thread-like nerves traverse down the 
 neck to be widely distributed over the thoracic 
 and abdominal organs ; such as the lungs, heart, 
 stomach, liver, spleen, and other viscera in those 
 vitalized regions. Of these, the par vagum and 
 sympathetic are quite interesting in a physio- 
 logical view, on account of their extensive dis- 
 tribution and the chain of sympathies maintain- 
 ed throughout the domain of the body by their 
 continually subdividing filaments. 
 
 Nearly opposite the vocal box, of itself a splen- 
 didly-constructed instrument, independently of 
 its peculiar function of producing sound, there 
 is an enlargement of the sympatlietic nerves on 
 the two sides ; a sort of bulging into a fleshy 
 kind of pad ; above and below, the main shaft of 
 the nerve is of a firm texture and of a silvery 
 whiteness. These enlargements are technically 
 called ganglia. In fact, similar increases of vol- 
 ume in the smaller order of nerves are discover- 
 able in the chest, in the lumbar cavities, the ax-
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 23 
 
 ilia, &c., and fulfil, it is safely conjectured, the 
 office of vital centres. In the worms, there are 
 no other brains than these, spread along the line 
 of the back, showing an elementary advance to- 
 wards the perfect brain of man. At the several 
 locations of these ganglia or cerebral centres, we 
 are to seek for certain effects on the body and 
 mind, through their instrumentality, as external 
 impressions are modified by their agency almost 
 indefinitely, when a person has been subjected 
 to unusual excitement. 
 
 Over the cervical ganglions, I am persuaded 
 that the tongue of the cat was drawn, the effect 
 being like other tittilations, to produce a condi- 
 tion of the nervous fluid, somwhat inexplicable 
 further, than the production of certain phenom- 
 ena, imperfectly analyzed. An exaltation of the 
 nervous tissues,* to their highest supportable 
 bearing, immediately ensued. 
 
 * I have had my doubts about the scientific propriety of 
 this word. However, there are hundreds of examples 
 which might be cited by our best writers, showing that 
 the more obscure they are, the better they are receiv- 
 ed by the reader. When thai soft poet, Park, takes a 
 harlequin leap into upper air, periodically, nobody but 
 himself knows a word of his splendid diction. In rh\-m- 
 ing, the ne plus ultra of modern Cologne water genius,
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 The events of the evening led to a learned 
 discussion upon the cause of Mrs. Fox's late 
 singular feelings. On the following morning, 
 Dr. B. being in the neighborhood of Chesnut 
 street, his opinion was asked of the producing 
 cause of it. He is too wise to commit himself, 
 and therefore asked permission to reflect an hour 
 or two. In the mean time we accidentally met 
 at Ticknor's bookstore, where crowds of idlers 
 
 the incomprehensibleness of the man is charming in the 
 poet. Behold the second killing edition of the song of the 
 Gipsy ; it is admirable : — 
 
 "Thy slender waist, thy tuneful eye, 
 Inflames, consumes — my amphr ototomy. ^^ 
 
 Save US, ye destinies, from an avalanche of Greek 
 Lexicons.
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 25 
 
 are permitted to lounge over the rarest produc- 
 tions in all languages, through the indomital)le 
 good-nature of the proprietor. Calling me aside, 
 in that non-committal undertone for which he is 
 distinguished, he gave a succinct history of a 
 rare case of catalepsy, scientifically barricaded 
 with provisos, that if it would be gratifying to 
 me, &c., although it was not customary to make 
 exhibitions of his patients, at three in the after- 
 noon, it would afford him much pleasure to take 
 me to the residence of JNIr. Fox. 
 
 Punctually at the hour, we met in Chesnut 
 street. The affair being talked over and over, 
 Mrs. Fox seated herself as before, and the old cat 
 was introduced to the company to repeat her 
 former operation. Her nose was repeatedly 
 placed in contact with the surface which was at 
 first stimulated ; but she manifested no sort of 
 disposition to lick the ganglion. This ill success 
 called into action the inventive faculty of Mr. 
 Fox, who suggested the idea of basting his wife's 
 neck with butter. Nothing could have been 
 more apropos ; puss instinctively availed herself 
 of the use of her tongue to gather up the sapid 
 coating. The act threw Mrs. Fox immediately in- 
 to a delirium of pleasure, followed by a cataleptic
 
 26 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 rigidity of the muscles, the will wholly losing its 
 control over the apparatus of voluntary motion. 
 
 Dr. B. declared that this was nothing more nor 
 less than Animal Magnetism, because she did not 
 suffer: her countenance was expressive of per- 
 fect delight. Full an hour elapsed before efforts 
 were made to awaken her. Various schemes were 
 suggested to bring her to herself again, but se- 
 rious apprehensions then began to take the place 
 of curiosity, lest a genuine lethargy had fastened 
 itself upon the obliging lady. Water sprinkled 
 over the face, the application of hartshorn, rub- 
 bing the limbs and chafing the temples, seemed 
 to avail nothing, so profoundly were her senses 
 locked up by Morpheus. Nor was Mrs. Fox 
 at all moved by loud and repeated calls, close to 
 the ear. Never had the family felt themselves 
 more sensibly afflicted; accusing themselves of 
 influencing their mother to become a victim of 
 an unwarrantable experiment. Both myself and 
 Dr. B. exhausted ourselves in the exertions made 
 in connexion with Mr. Fox and his daughters to 
 awaken her. Miss Matilda Fox, in the midst or 
 this dilemma, happened to pass one hand over 
 her mother's face in the act of untying a cap- 
 ribbon, when, to the unspeakable delight and re-
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 27 
 
 lief too of us all, she recovered the ability to move 
 and speak. 
 
 Q,uestion upon question was eagerly pressed, 
 each one being anxious to know how she felt, 
 what her dreams had been, whether she had 
 been exercised by pain ; and lastly, had she been 
 conscious of what had been passing, &lc., infinite- 
 ly faster than they could be conveniently answer- 
 ed. When their anxieties were quieted, they 
 were assured that the state that she had been 
 thrown into by the cat-necromancer, was per- 
 fect enjoyment; it was indescribably pleasur- 
 able,* nor could she very well resist the dis- 
 position to tell what she had seen in her visions, 
 if supernatural they were. 
 
 To know all, with scarcely patience to wait 
 till her thoughts were sufficiently collected, Mrs. 
 Fox related what, before we fathomed the phe- 
 nomena, almost seemed the visitations of a dis- 
 tempered brain. 
 
 In the first instance, as in subsequent experi- 
 
 * All those ladies who are susceptible of the magnetic 
 touch refer to the same exquisite train of sensations. Miss 
 Gleason, whose ardor and philanthropy induced her to 
 leave a Fall River factory to be illustrated upon by the 
 s^reat Dr. Poyen, uniformly melts before that gentleman's 
 manipulations, like an iceberg in a tropical sun.
 
 28 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 ments, the sensation of physical pleasure radiated 
 instantaneously from the throat ; and the next 
 feeling was this, viz. — that she was rapidly, 
 though gently, conveyed through the air ; the im- 
 pelling force never ceased acting, till the mind 
 became fixed on some one object, as a tree, a 
 house, or even a territory, when she instantly 
 felt herself at rest.* 
 
 An inquiry was now fairly instituted, and al- 
 though it was unconnected with a systematic 
 plan of investigation, enough had been devel- 
 oped to show that the vast domain of nature 
 might be inspected through the instrumentality 
 of Mrs. Fox's peculiar organization, provided 
 that a mode of manacrincr it could be ascertained. 
 By this declaration the reader will perceive that 
 
 * Miss Brackett, the Providence somnambulist, gives a 
 similar account of her aerial perigrinations. For a young 
 beginner, her explorations are calculated to produce a 
 striking revolution in astronomical science, by putting to 
 rest that mooted point about the globular figure of the 
 earth, which is glory enough for a female. She has over 
 and again convinced the President and professors of the 
 University, that Venus is a parallelopiped, which the 
 freshmen are obliged to swear to, as an article of faith on 
 entering college. Sophomores, by a late ordinance, are at 
 liberty to call on the lady twice a month, for further in- 
 formation.
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 29 
 
 I now began to believe in Animal Magnetism, 
 and yet I hardly know why. 
 
 On after reflection, we were surprised at the 
 manner in wliicii Mrs. Fox had been roused from 
 the paroxysms ; for it was recollected that a trans- 
 verse motion of Miss Matilda's hand over her 
 mother's face had twice broken the spell. Two 
 facts, at all events, were thus established, viz. 
 that Mrs. Fox could be made to slumber, even 
 without her free concurrence ; and, secondly, 
 that she could be awakened from that artificial 
 sleep by gently carrying the fingers across her 
 face, on the plane of the orbits.* 
 
 Such is the nature of man, in stumbling upon 
 a discovery like this, involving something of the 
 
 * Every writer on the science of Animal Magnetism, 
 gives precise rules for making the transverse passes. Op- 
 erators all over the country are familiar with the mode of 
 drawing out the magnetic fluid by transverse sweeps of the 
 hands across the face. I recommend to new beginners to 
 shake the fingers smartly, as ihey would to throw water- 
 drops from the hand, by a sudden jerk, as they leave the face. 
 Something of this sort is obviously necessary, otherwise 
 the nervous fluid is but partially extracted, which leaves 
 the individual, if young, in a queer state of moral feeling, 
 not precisely expressed in the books, rather dangerous to 
 those of a lymphatic temperament. Dr. Bobbins of Ux- 
 bridge, will throw a blaze of hght on this subject, directly. 
 3
 
 30 
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 mysterious, that he is stimulated to continual 
 exertions, being unwilling to relinquish a re- 
 search while the promise of surmounting diffi- 
 culties offers the most triflins: encourasfement. 
 We love to know the minutia3 in this country; 
 nor is this all : the why, and the wherefore, are 
 problems a New-Englander is unwilling to aban- 
 don till he knows all that is to be known of any- 
 thing which interests him. 
 
 On looking up to the clock, we were warned 
 of the lateness of the hour — midnight had crept 
 on before it was suspected. All further research, 
 therefore, was necessarily postponed to another 
 day. 1 called the next morning on Mrs. Fox, 
 who was in excellent spirits. Instead of exhibit- 
 ing a feverish lassitude, vital depression or fa- 
 tigue, the last night's labors were reverted to 
 with unfeigned satisfaction. After my arrival, 
 the young ladies were importunate to know yvhat 
 their mother saw the last evening, and besought 
 me to join forces with them in persuading her to 
 tell us all about it. She was kind enough to 
 comply, but it cannot be expected that 1 shall 
 detail the particulars of these imperfect or rath- 
 er incipient marches of the senses beyond those 
 limits impressed upon them by the operation of 
 the common laws of nature.
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 31 
 
 A proposition was made to have anotlier trial, 
 to whicii Mrs. Fox assented, but the cat could 
 no where be found. This was indeed a disap- 
 pointment, and for which none of us were pre- 
 pared. Knowing that the cross passes of Miss 
 Matilda had positively opened her eyes, I assured 
 her that it u'ould lay me under infinite obliga- 
 tions in being ])ermitled to manipulate her after 
 the manner laid down in M. Deleuze.* No ob- 
 jections being made, I commenced drawing my 
 fingers from above downward, in the direction of 
 the nerves and blood-vessels of the neck, quite 
 below the solar plexas, and finally down to the 
 knees. Sleep almost immediately was produced. 
 
 * Mr. Plartshorn, of Providence, to whom the whole 
 world is indebted for a translation of the best Manual on 
 Animal Magnetism extant, enriched by copious notes of 
 his own, together with letters in the appendix from meri- 
 torious ph)"sicians of that city, has shown what true cour- 
 age consists of. Nothing has been admitted into that stu- 
 pendous work unsuitable to be studied in the Mosque of 
 Omar. To discriminate truth from fiction, and so poise 
 the imaginings of ardent anthropologists so as not to have 
 the beam preponderate the wrong way, calls forth the 
 highest grade of talents. Dr. Capron's contributions to 
 Mr. Hartshorn must not be too lightly estimated. He is 
 a host in his own person, a kind of Megalonyx, — 
 
 *' For farces and physic, liis crjual there scarce is — 
 His farces are physic, his physic a farce is."
 
 32 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 Subsequent experiments convinced me that the 
 old preparatory process of holding the thumbs 
 a while before the regular passes are made, is an 
 useless expenditure of time. In an aged person 
 perhaps it might facilitate the magnetic state, 
 but under ordinary circumstances I consider it 
 quite as well to trust to the amount of fluid which 
 a bold magnetizer can impart from himself, by 
 regularly directing the nervous energy a consid- 
 erable time in one unbroken chain. Certainly 
 this course in my particular practice has always 
 been decidedly efficacious. 
 
 Some individuals are much more susceptible 
 than others. Those having a pale skin, slender 
 figure, blue eyes, and a quick, vigorous intellect, 
 should be preferred to those of a heavy mould. 
 Black eyes, black hair, with plump figures, are 
 not easily magnetized.* A head of red hair in- 
 dicates an excellent organization for the free 
 display of magnetic phenomena. 
 
 What I have ventured to call susceptibility, is 
 simply a condition to be acted upon by stimuli, 
 
 * The power of concentrating the nervous fluid is begin- 
 ning to be a rare qualification M. Poyen now confines 
 himself altogether to red-haired ladies. The only reason 
 of his failure before the Municipal authorities of Salem, 
 was owing to the undetected existence of a few solitary 
 hairs of another color in the left eyebrow.
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 33 
 
 which perhaps might be objected toby those less 
 devoted to logical deductions than myself. Stim- 
 uli, of whatever kind or quality, either imbibed 
 by cutaneous absorption or received into the 
 stomach, or infused through the extreme termi- 
 nations of the dermoid nerves, have the same 
 specific effect on the individual so receiving 
 them. The pulse are accelerated, a rapid se- 
 cretion of the fluids follows, and a sensitiveness 
 not unlike a mild exhileration is soon observa- 
 ble. 
 
 IMrs.Fox, as I have just related, by my agency, 
 again went to sleep. Never in the whole course 
 of my professional life have I felt that a greater 
 triumph had been gained. Beyond dispute I 
 thus made the important discovery, that in my 
 own individual person I carried an invisible 
 something which would prostrate the machinery 
 of the human frame, and set free the conscious 
 spirit, that would either go or come at my bid- 
 ding. Mental indications, or the willing to com- 
 pel another to do that which otherwise could or 
 would not have been executed, has not been suc- 
 cessfully managed in my hands. 
 
 At length we commenced asking her ques- 
 tions, to which she gave speedy and appropriate 
 answers. 1 said to her, Madam, do you perceive 
 3*
 
 34 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 
 
 any object 1 " Yes," said she, — "I see a gold 
 breast-pin lying under the left hand gate-post, 
 entering from the street." ** A gold pin, a gold 
 pin," repeated the young ladies, one to the oth- 
 er. It came to mind that six years ago, an arti- 
 cle of that kind had been lost, and that several 
 domestics had been suspected of purloining it. 
 There being no species of proof against their 
 assertions of honesty, the loss was quite for- 
 gotten. With the serving-man of the house, by 
 permission of Mrs. Fox, we forthwith raised the 
 post ; and lo ! there lay the trinket, uninjured 
 by its long imprisonment. The young ladies 
 now recalled the circumstance from olden lime, 
 and it was remembered by them that the gate 
 posts were set on the same day the pin disap- 
 peared. When the workmen had dug the holes, 
 they were called off to dinner. It was during 
 their absence that one of the three, who were 
 then children, playing about the spot, dropped 
 the jewel in. On their return in the afternoon, 
 the post was fixed in its destined position. If 
 any one questions this simple, yet truly extraor- 
 dinary prevision, in passing by Mr. Fox's house, 
 Chesnut street, the identical post upon which the 
 gate swings, may be inspected at leisure. 
 
 As the high price of fuel in Boston had been an
 
 A PHILOSOPHICAL EXPERIMENT. 35 
 
 occasional topic of conversation, the quantity 
 in market' being considered criminally small, I 
 asked Mrs. Fox whether she discovered any coal 
 beds near by 1 After looking as it were atten- 
 tively a moment or so, both eyes being perfectly 
 closed, "Yes," she spiritedly answered. "I 
 discover a prodigious quantity of coal, spread 
 out like a long black ribbon, about four yards 
 below the surface, inclining deeper and deeper 
 in a southeasterly direction from the apparent 
 place occupied by myself" What a shame, 
 nay, how wicked it is in the coal-dealers to 
 charge the poor such exorbitant prices, when 
 such an inexhaustible mine is close at hand ! Ev- 
 ery object being perfectly strange to her, she could 
 not determine where or in what town this splen- 
 did locality was situated, because no objects 
 were familiar to her recollection, if they had ev- 
 er before been seen. by her.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 
 
 Another sitting gave me further opportuni- 
 ty for pushing my inquiries into those dark re- 
 gions of terra firma, where no human eye, save 
 those of this gifted lady, has been permitted to 
 survey the wonders concealed in the earth be- 
 neath our feet. 
 
 Her attention having been directed to a casual 
 examination of the interior of the globe, she start- 
 ed from the chair with expressions of perfect 
 horror ; — for, not more than seven miles from 
 the surface, there is one vast furnace, where a 
 fire, millions of times hotter than it is possible to 
 conceive of, is roaring like legions of wild 
 beasts, and the molten billows surge over the 
 mighty sea of lurid fire in awful sublimity. 
 The sight was too painful. Pray, said I, keep 
 nearer the top of the ground, and, if you can, 
 inform me how it looks under the city of Boston.
 
 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 
 
 37 
 
 Perhaps ten minutes were required for con- 
 templating objects, before any facts were reveal- 
 ed. I urged lier to start from some familiar 
 point, and pursue the track of the streets, thus 
 maintaining her relationship to well-known edi- 
 fices, and at the same time enabling me to desig- 
 nate places which it might be desirable to re- 
 member. Accordingly, the starting-])lace was 
 in Washington Street, opposite the green stores, 
 a revolutionary monument. " Here," said INIrs. 
 Fox, " I will enter." Well, directly she an- 
 nounced a depth of about one hundred and lliirty 
 feet; — *' Certainly I am full thirty feet further 
 in the ground than could be reached with the 
 fireman's liberty-pole, planted by the side of the 
 big elm — and here is the edge of a great clay- 
 basin, bearing some fanciful resemblance to an 
 artificial reservoir." 
 
 I noted every word on the spot, so that my ac- 
 count may be relied upon. By following the 
 basin some considerable distance, she found that 
 the part on which she apparently stood, was the 
 segment of a great circle. It was filled with a 
 turbid, milky-colored water, but whether fresli or 
 salt, could not be determined. The earth above 
 dipped down, at irregular distances, like rude 
 columns, restinor on the bottom of this subterra-
 
 3S INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 
 
 nean lake. Between these props, of unequal 
 lengths, breadth and figure, the water flows 
 freely at all points of the compass. 
 
 Pursuing a northerly direction, the basin evi- 
 dently deepened, and a sort of boiling motion 
 was perceptible, as though the water was agita- 
 ted by some central force. In a word, the an- 
 cient city of Boston stands on the top of an infin- 
 itude of clay pillars, the water playing between 
 them as it does between the piers of a bridge. 
 
 On inquiry, I am informed, by gentlemen of 
 respectabilty, particularly the water-drinkers,* 
 that the project of supplying the metropolis of 
 the North with fresh water from the country, 
 has not met with such hearty encouragement 
 
 * Water-commissioners are appointed, by an express 
 provision of the United States, once in fifty years, at an 
 annual salary of three thousand dollars each, including 
 hack-hire, tolls and provender whenever they go to Stone- 
 ham. Their principal duty is to inspect the frog ponds, 
 and keep them clear from vermin. Last season they 
 caught lots of tadpoles ; a service that was promptly 
 acknowledged by the Texian government. A daily 
 record is kept at the water office, open to the inspec- 
 tion of strangers. The clerks are fine fellows, never 
 being from business more than two weeks at once. No 
 documents are hailed with such demonstrations of pleas- 
 ure as estimates of the cost of introducing fresh water into 
 cities.
 
 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 39 
 
 from the citizens as it otherwise would, were it 
 not susceptible of demonstration that artesean 
 wells would be adequate to any demands made 
 upon them. Wherever an auger has been thrust 
 to the depth of one, or perhaps, at farthest, two 
 hundred feet, by individual enterprise, the water 
 has rushed to the surface with surprising force. 
 A well, near the rope-walks, sunk by Captain 
 Lewis, another in Fayette Street, the labor of 
 Mr. Marsh, and another at Alger's foundry, 
 South Boston, must convince any person, open 
 to conviction, that there is a never-failing foun- 
 tain in the earth below. Wherever tlie boring 
 has been tried north and northeast of the market, 
 the di[) of the superincumbent earth requires the 
 instrument to be sunk considerably deeper than 
 at the southern sections of the city. 
 
 Though exceedingly unwilling, by importuni- 
 ty, Mrs. Fox was induced to look minutely into 
 the boundaries of this basin, being then, as I am 
 at the instant of recording these facts, satisfied 
 that the public have a right to profit by this dis- 
 covery. 
 
 East Boston, the oN'avy Yard at Charlestown, 
 the depot of the Lowell Rail-roa5, the whole of 
 West Boston, Charles River, round to the west- 
 ern avenue, are embraced with the natural
 
 40 
 
 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 
 
 boundaries of the basin. The deepest place is 
 nearly under the Oriental Bank, at the corner 
 of Slate Street and Merchants' Row. Mrs. Fox 
 suspects that the milky color was owing (o a 
 solution of clay, the forest of supporters being 
 continually washed by the circulating water. 
 Those abortive attempts to obtain it by borin<.> 
 in several vvards, were owing to the misfortune 
 of striking the auger into one of the gigantic pii- 
 lars instead of penetrating the interstice between 
 two of them. This is a difficulty always to be 
 apprehended ; and yet, with our imperfect knowl- 
 edge of geology, there is no mode of certainly- 
 avoiding the difficulty. 
 
 According to her notions of labor-saving, Mrs. 
 Fox considers the most favorable ground in the 
 whole city for sinking an artesean well, on ac- 
 count of the prodigious width of the inter-col- 
 umner spaces, to be in Chauncy place, at its in- 
 tersection with Summer Street. That this is a 
 hollow place is very certain.* 
 
 * Mr. T being aware of ihe cavernous character 
 
 of Chauncy Place, limited the school to a definite number 
 of boys, years ago, fearmg to exceed it, lest any accumu- 
 lation of ponderoj^ity should sink the whole establishment. 
 Owing to a similar feeling on the part of the proprietors 
 of the church near by, marriage publishments are read on
 
 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 41 
 
 At the western extremity of Louisburg square, 
 partly under the street, Mrs. Fox discovered a 
 brick vault of sufficient capacity to take in a 
 common-sized hogshead. Within this concealed 
 enclosure, are seven earthen pots, covered over 
 at the top with sheet lead ; interspersed among 
 them, are some dozens of bottles, the hilt of a 
 sword in the north corner, and the decayed 
 frame-work of a trunk. She could not deter- 
 mine the contents of the stone vessels. She con 
 jectured, however, that they were originally filled 
 with pickles. A similar underground structure 
 was found, in 18*26, in Chamber street, at a depth 
 of more than thirty feet below the natural level 
 of the land. Thousands of people thronged the 
 neighborhood to take a peep at it, while excava- 
 tions were making for a block of buildings, to 
 face on Leverett street. Although currently re- 
 ported to contain nothing but a few slaughter- 
 house bones, it was generally believed that valu- 
 able property had been taken out before publici- 
 ty was given to the fact that a strong specimen 
 of masonry had been found at that section of the 
 town. 
 
 Thursdays, and never on the Sabbath. Crowded assem- 
 blies in Chauucey Place might be attended with danger- 
 ous coniequences. 
 
 4
 
 42 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 
 
 I besouorht her to look further, not doubting 
 that in a city of tlie inagniliide of Boston, dis- 
 tinguislied for its wealth, that much treasure of 
 one kind and another, in the revolution, lost by 
 accident and design, was concealed on the old 
 estates. 
 
 Not far from eleven feet deep, just under the 
 west corner of the Stone Chapel, Mrs. Fox saw a 
 singular collection of coins, the remains of an 
 under jaw, and, in contact with both, a tin canis- 
 ter of buttons.* Twelve feet from those articles, 
 exactly in a line with the southern face, is a 
 skeleton in a sitting position, having a copper 
 hooj) encircling the skull, one inch and a quar- 
 ter in width. On both arms, above tiie elbows, 
 are two green rings. At the feet is the head of 
 a deer, with prodigiously wide branching ant- 
 lers. My curiosity has been so excited by this 
 declaration, that an early application is premedi- 
 tated to the proper authorities, for permission to 
 make an opening under that ancient edifice. 
 
 * Probably the reminiscences of a tailor. Mr. Milton 
 having dealt largely in copper advertisements imitating 
 cents, in his last will and testament, it is hoped, will direct 
 that all the shop coinage on hand at the final consumma- 
 tion of business at FaneuilHall, shall be disposed of in the 
 same manner.
 
 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 43 
 
 In North Square, several strange specimens 
 of mechanical skill, the use or cle.'<ign of which 
 could not be devised, are buried at irregular 
 depths. When the foundation of the mariner's 
 church was laid, had the ditrgers dipped two 
 feet further, singular reliquiae of savage life would 
 have been brought to light. 
 
 Anxious for her penetrating eye to search the 
 town generally, perhaps at this sitting, the ob- 
 servations were made too much at random : my 
 excuse is, that it was a part of my design to first 
 reconnoitre the town, and at a leisure day take 
 the streets by ward?. The first developments, 
 therefore, only, are here noted.. 
 
 On the sides of Fox Hill, the site of a fort in 
 ruins, west of Crescent Pond, hundreds of per- 
 plexing sights were presented, averaging three 
 and a half feet deep. More than seventy skele- 
 tons of infants, secured in coffee-pots, cigar 
 boxes, oil jars, wine measures, &lc. are concealed 
 there. Among this mournful collection of dry 
 bones, Mrs. Fox recognized two beautiful work- 
 baskets, both containing horrible mementos of 
 crime. On the marshy extremity of the Com- 
 mon, she had a distinct view of a human skele- 
 ton which had an iron spike driven in atone ear. 
 She was greatly shocked at the sight, and begged
 
 44 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 
 
 that I would not urge her to remain in that 
 dreadful golgotha. My sympathies were power- 
 fully in harmony with her own, and I very wil- 
 lingly proposed another district. Since then, 
 no walk over that part of the Common has been 
 pleasant ; even a distant sight of Fox Hill recalls 
 painful emotions. On Fort Hill, not a single 
 object worth speaking of could be found. At 
 two places in Milk Street, about eighty old 
 French crowns lie scattered over a space of some 
 three square feet. Between the Old South and 
 — — , spoons, three silver tankards, &c., a cop- 
 per tea-kettle full of small change, like contribu- 
 tion money, are snugly hidden under a fragment 
 of a grave-stone. The latter is presumed to 
 have been taken from the Granary Yard, the 
 lower half standing there having a fracture to 
 correspond with the secreted portion. All these 
 things are conjectured to have been deposited 
 when the British troops held possession of the 
 town, by some one who no doubt intended to 
 take them up when property would be secured 
 by law to the rightful owner. 
 
 Nine feet from the Old South side walk, con- 
 siderably deep, lies another grave-stone, bearing, 
 on its front, the sculptured face of a cherub, with 
 a pair of wings resembling hand-bellows, grow-
 
 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 4o 
 
 in<T out an inch behind the ears. W. J. in plain 
 chiselling-, are cut on the opposite or back side. 
 I shall rejoice to hear the pew holders consent 
 to have an exploration about their premises. 
 
 Close by the Doubt estate, North End, bor- 
 dering upon Tileston Street, lies something worth 
 possessing. The same may be said of the con- 
 tents of a well, hard by Copp's Hill ; but I for- 
 bear to indicate definitely on account of the dep- 
 redations that would infallibly be made by un- 
 principled adventurers. But of all spots sur- 
 veyed by Mrs. Fox, the inner harbor is incal- 
 culably the richest, surpassing the creations of 
 fancy in many respects. Opposite the wharves, 
 on the hither side of the channel, nothing but 
 bits of rope, fragments of iron hoops, or the occa- 
 sional fluke of a rusty anchor came to view. 
 On the flats, however, quite a diff'erent scene 
 presented. Anchors of all patterns and sizes, 
 iron keels, parts of chain-cables, copper bolts, 
 rings, tackles, gunsof all sorts, with and without 
 stocks, fishing tackle ; thousands of lead weights 
 tied with short pieces of codline; bottles, watch- 
 es, seals and chains, finger-rings, spy-glasses, 
 drinking vessels, knives, buttons, spoons, besides 
 innumerable articles not now recollected, have 
 been strewn over some forty acres with a profuse 
 4*
 
 46 INTERESTING DISCOVERIES. 
 
 hand. These, in fact, are the gatherings of two 
 hundred years, mostly by accident. West of 
 Bird Island, Mrs. Fox saw three human skele- 
 tons, loaded with a number of fifty-sixes, fastened 
 on by wire. Surely, this is an indication of some 
 foul deed. She often assured me that only a 
 stone's throw from the wharves, taking a circuit 
 of the town, the waves roll over the disappearing 
 osseous remains of many loved ones, whose dis- 
 appearance was never satisfactorily explained. 
 Other bones, of horses, dogs, cats, and coins of 
 various denominations, wedged in the mud, and 
 still working towards the clay bottom, beneath 
 the vegetable accumulations and filth, seemingly 
 might be recovered by the simplest mechanical 
 contrivances imaginable.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SOMETHIxVG SURPRISING. 
 
 Perhaps I am becoming tedious : surely it is 
 not my wish to offend against good manners, 
 and yet 1 feel that the public has a direct claim 
 upon me to tell all I know in the department of 
 knowledge to which of late I have been passion- 
 ately devoted. As my acquaintance with Mrs. 
 Fox soon ripened into a friendship, which I trust 
 is mutually acknowledged by the family — cer- 
 tainly so on my part, confidence became strength- 
 ened, and she exerted herself to gratify my un- 
 conquerable love of discovery to the extent of 
 her clairvoyant faculty. To Mrs. Fox, I here 
 make an unqualified declaration, am I indebted 
 for all the advances I have made from the limit- 
 ed knowledge of the schools, in those sublime 
 contemplations of the grandeur and extent of 
 that ceaseless Power which operates through all
 
 48 SOMETHING SURPRISING. 
 
 space, controlling the minutest portion of organ- 
 ized matter, as it does the countless stars in the 
 firmament, in beauty and order. Had it not 
 have been for the untiring condescension of Mrs. 
 Fox, the learned would still have been enveloped 
 in darkness oa thousands of questions, now made 
 clear and comprehensible. 
 
 At too great a depth to warrant mining opera- 
 tions, unfortunately, under the town of Spring- 
 field, Vt. is a monstrous deposit of copper ore. 
 Also at Bellows' Falls and at Brattleborough, 
 copper of pretty good quality may be considered 
 plenty. Nothing worth describing could be de- 
 tected in the substrata of Windsor or Hartland, 
 taking the course of the river. A beautiful in- 
 terval bottom on the Connecticut, called Weth- 
 ersfield Bow, is quite rich in mineral deposits. 
 There will always be difficulty to contend with 
 in subterranean explorations at the Bow, on ac- 
 count of the perpendicular depth of the miner- 
 als, below the bottom of the river. A good deal 
 of copperas might be advantageously manufac- 
 tured at Cornish, N. H. Hanover is perfectly 
 sterile, with the exception of garnets. Mrs. Fox 
 saw splendid specimens ; some larger than ounce 
 bullets. She says it would well pay the way for 
 Boston jewellers to be at considerable expense
 
 SOMETHING SURPRISING. 49 
 
 to procure them. Generally, they are imbedded 
 in a grayish kind of rock. Of all the towns in 
 New-Hampshire, Hopkinton, Goffstown, Con- 
 way and Centre-Harbor, have bv.en the decided 
 favorites of nature. Accident will at some future 
 day show the people there what there is under- 
 neath their green fields. Specks of gold were 
 repeatedly noticed, even above ground, at the 
 base of the White Mountains. Blastings on the 
 south border would astonish a professed geolo- 
 gist. An abundance of lead might be thrown 
 up in a hundred places. 
 
 Vermont abounds with lead, iron, copper and 
 rich marble. Rutland, Vergennes, Woodstock, 
 and Manchester, are amply provided for, even 
 for centuries, in many respects. Another gen- 
 eration will look into matters. 
 
 Mrs. Fox, after repeated trials, declared that 
 there were no minerals in Rhode Island. In 
 this sweeping assertion, however, she made no 
 reference to coal ; the real and only bank to be 
 depended upon in the State. The little State has 
 scarcely anything else but coal ; the whole east 
 side of Providence river is one solid bed of slaty 
 bituminous coal, quite down to Newport. A 
 shaft of two hundred feet would show a quality 
 that would vie with the best Liverpool. " How
 
 50 SOMETHING SURPRISING. 
 
 black it is," she often repeated, in tracing the 
 veins. Warren, is altogether superior to Bris- 
 tol for coaling. Two miles or so above Provi- 
 dence, and even at Pawtucket, the coal lies deep, 
 but there is an immensity of it. Mrs. Fox once 
 said to me that it was very strange some one had 
 not detected coal at Pawtucket in sinking two 
 wells, the lowest in the town, as they actually 
 struck a vein. Smithfield has coal too, but it is 
 considerably intermixed with pebbles in an un- 
 usual manner, giving it something of the appear- 
 ance of Roxbury conglomerate or pudding-stone. 
 By my express desire, a bed of coal was fol- 
 lowed from the town of Warren, R, I. north and 
 northeasterly, with a hope that some point would 
 be found where it cropped out of the ground. 
 I was encouraged in this, because Mrs. Fox in- 
 variably spoke of the veins being like intermina- 
 ble undulating black ribbons. The uppermost 
 one she assured me dipped amazingly deep, till 
 it neared the level lands at the base of the Mil- 
 ton Hills or Blue Ridges, where it came nearer 
 the surface. To the east of duincy, in Massa- 
 chusetts, and particularly under a certain farm, 
 which from a series of observations has been 
 identified to be the estate of the Hon. John Q. 
 Adams, there are three thick veins, one above
 
 SOMETHING SURPRISING. 51 
 
 the other, separated some fifteen feet, more or 
 less, by earthy matter. Ali three finally dip 
 down suddenly under Quincy bay, seaward, un- 
 der and beyond President Quincy's Salt Works. 
 On the north and northeast side of the Milton 
 Hills, Mrs. Fox considers this coal to be a com- 
 pact anthracite ; and she also remarked to me, 
 at the same time, that in ten years more, the 
 arrival of a cargo of hard coal from Pennsyl- 
 vania, would be as ridiculous, as the proverb has 
 it, as carrying coals to New-Castle. Quincy is 
 destined to great importance in the coal-trade 
 hereafter. 
 
 Connecticut has coal too, distributed particu- 
 larly on the margin of Long Island Sound, and 
 on both sides of the mouth of the Connecticut 
 river, at Lyme and Saybrook. Unfortunately, 
 the greatest proportion of it lies quite in the 
 Sound, where it is impossible to raise it. Weth- 
 ersfield abounds with coal in broad sheets, but 
 little beneath the onion beds, which could be 
 mined to good profit. 
 
 At this stage of the survey, Mrs. Fox was re- 
 quested to peep under the city of Hartford, be- 
 ing convinced in my own mind that if coal veins 
 were in Wethersfield, Hartford was not wholly 
 destitute. To my vexation, however, she said
 
 52 SOMETHING SURPRISING. 
 
 not a particle was to be found there. In the 
 search, she perceived a strange colleotion of 
 great bones, about a quarter of a mile, she judged, 
 from the steamboat landing, nearly under a cer- 
 tain wooden house, rather old, to which was at- 
 tached a small garden. The front door is shaded 
 by evergreen. In the collection is one large 
 skeleton, " long as a church ! " having three legs 
 on each side. On the neck is a monstrons stone, 
 pressing the vertebrae into the hard clay. As 
 the upper part of the skull is broken in, it seems 
 as though the monster had been suddenly killed 
 by the stone, hurled with resistless force from an 
 unknown source. Twenty or thirty teeth are 
 within a foot or two, variously fractured, as if 
 violently wrenched from their deep sockets. On- 
 ly a few rods from the bank of the river, in Glas- 
 tenbury, there lies another ferocious looking 
 nondescript monster, stretched out at full length, 
 so very near the water, that one or two more 
 spring floods will certainly expose the bones of 
 the tail. 
 
 If there is not enterprise enough in the good 
 city of Hartford to redeem these valuable fossil 
 remains, it will be a reproach to their intelli- 
 gence. Once obtained, their naturalists would 
 possess the rarest, richest monuments of the 
 world before the flood.
 
 SOMETHING SURPRISING. 53 
 
 A cursory examination only, was had of the 
 State of New York. Such a multitude of mag- 
 nificent objects presented themselves, as it were, 
 that she was quite confounded, indeed, over- 
 whelmed by the exhibition. The most common 
 sight where there were plains bordering upon 
 streams, were the same kind of great bones 
 which are buried at Glastenbury. She saw, 
 too, columns of water rising from unfathomable 
 depths, boiling and sparkling towards the sur- 
 face, through inclined canals, which were small 
 in some parts, and bulging into wide tubes in 
 others. Within seventy feet of the surface, 
 many of them coalesce ; the main stream pur- 
 suing a horizontal direction to an unknown 
 destination. In four different counties, great 
 white stones, or as they might be called quartz 
 mountains, are conspicuous objects to a person 
 capable of visiting distant regions by the aid of 
 Animal Magnetism. I take these to be pure 
 rock salt, all the water used in the manufacture 
 of the article in the interior of the State, merely 
 holding in solution a small quantity of salt, 
 which it obtains in passing over the crystallized 
 masses. 
 
 Amongst other topics, we happened to be dis- 
 coursing, on a certain occasion, about the primi-
 
 54 SOMETHING SURPRISING. 
 
 tive inhabitants of America ; and I suggested to 
 Mrs. Fox that sufficient memorials were hidden 
 in the earth, could they be brought up, to estab- 
 lish the truth of Indian traditions. The conver- 
 sation greatly interested her ; and being free to 
 lend her assistance to discover how far my theory 
 could be sustained by facts, a time was assigned 
 for an experiment. Knowing that the valley of 
 the Mississippi would, in all probability, yield the 
 best antiquarian harvest, if one was to be realiz- 
 ed at all, Mrs. Fox's clairvoyance was put in 
 requisition for a grand inspection of celebrated 
 sites in Ohio, Missouri, Michigan, Illinois, Ar- 
 kansas, and Wisconsin Territory.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 
 
 Those who would enlarge their sphere of 
 knowledge, need not travel beyond the bounda- 
 ries of our own happy country, to be convinced 
 that America has been the theatre on which man 
 has figured through all the phases of human na- 
 ture, from the wildest condition of savage life, to 
 the day in which we live, and that the revolu- 
 tions he has passed through, from an era to 
 which no written memorial refers, and no tradi- 
 tion reaches, is demonstrated by a countless 
 number of magnificent remains, the labors of 
 his hands, whose design cannot be ascertained, 
 and which still promise to lesist the physical 
 changes of the globe, unessentially impaired for 
 unnumbered generations to come. 
 
 If any light could be thrown upon the internal 
 structure of the mounds, the great unspeaking
 
 56 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 
 
 wonders of the western division of the United 
 States, I felt it an imperious duty to collect it. 
 By the same indulgent kindness, which has 
 characterized Mrs. Fox through a succession of 
 fatiguing researches into things which she knew 
 nothing of before they were offered for her elu- 
 cidation, the important contributions to the 
 stock of antiquarian lore already collected, has 
 been procured. I have long reflected upon the 
 intention of the builders of the mounds, but I 
 do not feel that the object is yet discovered. 
 However, I am fully prepared to display their 
 contents, but regret that the learned will prob- 
 ably be obliged to theorize, as they always have, 
 without sufficient data on the exact use which 
 was originally made of them. 
 
 In the first place, there is not a tumulus, 
 either large or small, in which the nucleus is 
 not a human skeleton. Within an earth-walled 
 enclosure, on the north fork of Paint Creek, 
 near Chilicothe, are six miniature tumuli, sur- 
 rounded by a double circular wall. Mrs. Fox 
 saw in the centres of the three largest, a skele- 
 ton in each, lying upon its right sides, with 
 their heads to the west. They were wrapped 
 in a firm twilled twine cloth, and a stone image, 
 resembling, faintly, the body of a man, severed at
 
 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 57 
 
 the lower part of the abdomen, was grasped by 
 the right hand. A circular silver plate, origin- 
 ally, perhaps, a medallion, bearing the embossed 
 representation of the sun, is figured on the three. 
 Two skulls, deprived of their eye teeth, are lash- 
 ed to their feet. These, I am inclined to sup- 
 pose, were sacred individuals, perhaps priests. 
 Within the three smaller mounds, are the bones 
 of children, in such a state of preservation, that 
 Mrs^ Fox suspects that they were embalmed. 
 Each one is laid in the skin of a great bird, the 
 feathers siill adhering. A little bag is suspend- 
 ed to their necks, containing red paint, and two 
 square pieces of metal, perforated in the middle. 
 They are in a compact row, and seemed to have 
 been bound together by a serpent, whose head 
 and tail are tied together in a knot. These, too, 
 were probably the offspring of the priesthood, 
 or else sacrificed on some momentous occasion. 
 Two mounds, standing outside the ancient 
 fort at Circleville, Ohio, are full of relics. Bones 
 of men, but twenty heads to one frame, are buri- 
 ed in a pit, ten feet deep, over which the 
 mounds were raised. Sea-shells, particularly 
 conchs, sheets of mica-slate and small red east- 
 ern pots, are variously interspersed throughout 
 the structure. More than a cord of wood is bu- 
 5*
 
 58 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 
 
 ried at the bottom, as if a vat of logs was first 
 built to receive the remains. 
 
 At Marietta, ten thousand curiosities are bu- 
 ried hither and thither, even down as low as 
 ninety feet. Iron axes, iron shoes, copper hel- 
 mets, swords, spears, sculptured resemblances 
 of serpents, lizards, and other reptiles, are abun- 
 dant. On the southern bank of the Musking- 
 um river, astonishing revelations are to be made. 
 Mrs. Fox said it was impossible to describe one 
 hundredth part of what she saw. It occurs to 
 me to mention that magazines of corn are plenty 
 in the vicinity of Marietta. She thinks that in 
 two of those under-ground stores, as much as 
 two hundred bushels of corn, in the ear, is so 
 sound and dry, that it would make sweet meal. 
 By analyzing the ground within a line of forts 
 at the junction of the Muskingum and the Ohio, 
 four flat stones may be dug up, bearing inscrip- 
 tions. She was shown a copy of the characters 
 on the famous Dighton rock, and asked to com- 
 pare them ; but there was no tangible resemblance. 
 Each letter, if letters they are, on the Marietta 
 tablets, is crowned by thepicture of a man's face; 
 and, projecting from the mouth, is the shape of 
 an arrow. One stone has nine lines upon it, 
 another one, embraced at the extremities by the
 
 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 59 
 
 talons of a hawk ; the others are precisely 
 alike, — being, apparently, duplicates, written 
 from top to bottom. In a field, twenty rods, or 
 thereabouts, west of the largest fort, is an earth- 
 en vessel, of the capacity of fifteen or sixteen 
 hogsheads, completely filled with flutes. Some 
 of them are made of heron's legs, and some of 
 cane-stalks. One of the instruments is a fac- 
 simile of a trombone, excepting it is without 
 .keys, and made of brass.* 
 
 Newark, in Licking county, Ohio, was ran- 
 'sacked quite thoroughly; but, notwithstanding 
 the glowing descriptions of Caleb Atwater, Esq., 
 it is rather a poverty-stricken depot. The artifi- 
 cial pond, marked F., in his map of the ruins be- 
 tween Racoon Creek and the South Fork of 
 Licking river, is the only place worth exploring. 
 A considerable quantity of long bars of lead lie 
 in the pond, — and in the part marked C, is a 
 magazine of grain, similar to those described at 
 
 * When these surprising revelations reach Marietta, 
 I cannot believe they will go unheeded. The Antiquari- 
 an Society ought to send an agent to that fertile spot, to 
 secure the harvest of relics. The trumpery constituting 
 the Museum, is getting old, hence a spirited movement is 
 necessary, particularly as the manufacture of American 
 antiquities, by the Connecticut pedlars, was suspended, 
 during the late pressure.
 
 60 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 
 
 Chilicotlie. It is all shelled, and appears to have 
 been parched. 
 
 Many ambitious antiquarians have lived and 
 died, who would have made large sacrifices to 
 have been gratified with a knowledge of the con- 
 tents of a very great mound, designated the Big 
 Grave, not far from Wheeling. Mr. Tomlinson, 
 the owner, and others equally interested in it, as 
 property, never would permit any excavations in 
 it. Its circumference is three hundred yards — 
 the diameter, consequently, three hundred feet ; 
 and its height, just ninety. I am proud to un- 
 fold the mystery, since Mrs. Fox has placed it 
 within my power to gratify the world.* 
 
 In the first place, the foundation of that im- 
 mensely large mound is laid on four hundred 
 
 * A general complaint has been made against mound- 
 owners, by travellers, that no facilities are offered them 
 for prosecuting researches in the western country. This 
 will explain the reasons why every volume issued under 
 the authority of the American Antiquarian Society, is 
 made up of nursery tales. It is not customary, in that 
 musty body, to receive a communication for their archives, 
 not bearing the impress of one thousand years. At any 
 rate, to create a stir, it must be perfectly illegible. Consis- 
 tency is the order of the day, with the fellows, for a new 
 member must be in his dotage before election. Young 
 men are unkno%\Ti to the Worcestier Antiquarian Pre- 
 torians.
 
 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 61 
 
 four-footed animals, placed in a manner to de- 
 scribe an octagon, — the heads being turned 
 outward. They are either elephants or mam- 
 moths, — but I have no means of knowing which. 
 On the neck of each is the skeleton of a man, al- 
 together taller than any variety of the human 
 species at present known to naturalists. Brace- 
 lets are on their arms above the elbows, and on 
 the ankles. They appear to have been crushed 
 down by a mass of earth suddenly dropped from 
 above ; yet such could not have been the fact. 
 Over these, constituting a flooring, is a structure 
 of sand, two feet and four inches thick, and over 
 that, bushels of teeth, of all kinds, from those of 
 men, to those of fishes. Where so many could 
 have been procured, is truly surprising. Over 
 these, again, are millions, apparently, of earthen 
 vessels, of all manner of patterns, bearing a gro- 
 tesque variety of raised figures. Some of these 
 articles are in the form of men, in all possible at- 
 titudes; some are like monkies, hawks, ground- 
 hogs, foxes, racoons, rabbits, crows and serpents. 
 They surround a central ring, bounded by a curb- 
 stone, enclosing a shallow well, holding a black 
 'mass, seemingly consolidated into stone. Conjec- 
 ture has made this to be blood, poured into the well 
 — taken, perhaps, from the dead bodies under-
 
 b» RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 
 
 neath. The well is covered by an earthen cov- 
 er, nine feet in diameter, bearing the twelve 
 signs of the zodiac on the upper surface. Quite 
 in the centre of that, a staple passes through, 
 keyed in the under side by a copper nail. Over 
 all these things, are concentric circles of human 
 bodies, systematically sized. Small infants, ly- 
 ing face down, have all their feet in contact over 
 the well. Beyond them is another size, and then 
 another, and so on, till the exterior circle is made 
 of gigantic bones, bespeaking them, when alive, 
 to have been^ certainly, eight feet tall. Again, 
 over these, is another coat of earth and rich 
 mould, five feet thick. Into this is stuck thou- 
 sands upon thousands of arrows, the stone-pomts 
 up, which gave the mound, at that stage of its 
 building, the appearance of a forest of weapons. 
 Every other one, within one inch of the lanceo- 
 lated head, is ornamented with a red cord. 
 Over these is twenty-seven feet of earth, being a 
 promiscuous mixture of clay, sand, and gravel. 
 
 All the remainder, quite to the summit, pre- 
 senting an area of forty feet in diameter, is made 
 up of earth. Quite in the centre of this elevated 
 table, there is now a depression, caused by the 
 decay of the bodies at the base. 
 
 People of Louisville, Kentucky, would marvel
 
 RESEARCHES IN TITE MOUNDS. 63 
 
 if they knew what lay under their feet. How- 
 ever, by the inspection of a mound familiar to 
 them all, a sufficient number of objects would be 
 recovered to compensate for every outlay of 
 money in carrying on the labor. In that, there 
 is a row of capacious earthen vessels, somewhat 
 like tea-kettles, having spouts to resemble ser- 
 pents. These constitute, as it were, an inclosure, 
 within the embrace of which, is an infinitude of 
 balls, perhaps four inches in diameter, made to 
 look much like common cannon-balls. Over 
 them is a stratum of white sand, and above the 
 sand, in the very centre, is a triangular brass 
 tablet, two inches thick, bearing singular char- 
 acters on both sides. It is so large that the 
 angles are the boundaries of a circle twelve feet 
 across. It will be seen, therefore, that the brass 
 alone would be a prize worth digging for. At 
 each angle of the triangle, is a human head, 
 probably decapitated for the purpose, facing in- 
 wardly. A very fine composition of clay, sand, 
 and vegetable fibres overlays this precious relic 
 to the depth of one foot only. A circle was 
 then made of human bodies, on their haunches, 
 all facing the centre — fifty-seven in all, who 
 give striking evidence of having been slain, as 
 all their skulls are fractured at the occiput, as
 
 64 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 
 
 though Struck with a heavy bludgeon. In the 
 right hand of each is a delicate red cup, and, 
 perched upon the thumb of the left hand, the 
 figure of a little bird, wrought of clay. 
 
 Precisely under the Medical College, in the 
 city of Cincinnati, which appears to have been 
 a site fixed upon for rearing a great mound, 
 from the preparations made in the earth, but 
 which, for causes forever unknown, was aban- 
 doned after considerable progress had been made 
 by those engaged in it, are many unique articles, 
 not at all easy to describe. A well was first dug 
 thirty-seven feet, and the bottom covered with a 
 sculptured tortoise, the shell just fitting the sides. 
 On its back is the representation of a warrior, 
 dressed in armor, holding a spear in the right 
 hand, and a lion by the nape of the neck, with 
 the left. 
 
 A variety of things in character with the con- 
 tents of the well, are lying at various depths, all 
 over the city of Cincinnati, and especially with- 
 in six and eight hundred feet of the water. 
 
 I urged Mrs. Fox to consider some section of 
 Illinois, with reference to antiquarian relics. 
 She obligingly made a slight excursion there, 
 but expressed herself fatigued. On the bank of 
 a river she saw the frame of a steamboat, with
 
 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 65 
 
 Eimnsville on tlie stern. I then inquired what 
 there was in the neighborhood ? to which she 
 quickly replied, ** Nothing but bones." Under 
 a large store, Mrs. Fox assured me that there 
 were ten skeletons, in a sitting posture, and all 
 of them had heavy lead caps on, shaped like a 
 common tin wash-bowl. 
 
 Here my research into and among the mounds 
 was interrupted on account of the soreness of 
 Mrs. Fox's eyes, brought on by long and contin- 
 ued exertion. Although closed by the lids, the 
 visual apparatus was necessarily intensely exer- 
 cised in every telescopic observation. Not wish- 
 ing to become too importunate, and thus lose my 
 only chance of penetrating the secrets of the soil, 
 I told her if she would favor me with a few- 
 glances nearer home, which would be attended 
 with less expenditure of ocular strength, I would 
 not urge her to prolong the exploration any long- 
 er, but wait till she felt herself sufficiently re- 
 cruited and renovated to renew our inquiries. 
 
 A look was now taken of the harbor of New 
 York, between the battery and Jersey city. In- 
 stantly, about ten rods from the battery, the first 
 object she saw was a huge iron-bound box, 
 nearly covered by mud, filled with American 
 
 half dollars. Nothing, apparently, would be less 
 6
 
 66 
 
 RESEARCHES IN THE MOUNDS. 
 
 difficult than to drag it up by a common rake. 
 On East River, she said there were dollars 
 enough imbedded in the mud, close by the ends 
 of the wharves, to load a hand-cart. The rem- 
 nants, too, of human beings, were promiscuously 
 strewn over acres of bottom. The bones, too, of 
 children, were in horrible profusion in every di- 
 rection. Surely, the police is in duty bound to 
 inquire into this dreadful appearance.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 
 
 Every physician, of liberal views, has been con- 
 vinced of the utility of the practice of Animal 
 Magnetism in alhiying agonizing pain, and in 
 shortening, if not permanently overcoming dan- 
 gerous maladies. When the mode of producing 
 somnambulism was first taught, every medical 
 philanthropist hailed the discovery with benevo- 
 lent satisfaction, because it was foreseen that 
 the exercise of clairvoyancy would wholly super- 
 sede the stethescope, an awkward instrument at 
 best, which, in the hands of experienced auscul- 
 turists, about as frequently misleads as it gives 
 a true indication. 
 
 At the season the series of experiments were 
 in progress, of which this little memoir is the 
 record, several of my intimate personal friends 
 were extremely ill ; two of them were considered
 
 DO PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 
 
 to be in the last stages of pulmonary consump- 
 tion. The field to which Mrs. Fox was invited, 
 was indeed new to her, but an ample sphere for 
 the exercise of her predominant kindness of 
 heart, lay within it, and she, as I had anticipated, 
 cordially assisted me in many pathological re- 
 searches, to the perfect restoration of several, 
 and, confessedly, to the relief of others, who oth- 
 erwise might not at this hour have been alive. 
 
 Residing at Roxbury, is a young lady of the 
 first respectability, who had been afl^licted with 
 a swelling of the right foot. The sense of feel- 
 ing was quite lost in it, so that pinching could 
 not be felt, nor could she distinguish the appli- 
 cation of hot from cold water. The case had 
 been minutely stated to me by t%vo medical at- 
 tendants, who would have thanked me for any 
 suggestions calculated to benefit their patient. 
 
 One afternoon, I said to Mrs. F., — In a charm- 
 ing house on Mount Pleasant, there sits a young 
 lady, with one foot supported on an ottoman, or, 
 rather, it is presumable that she is thus seated at 
 this hour of the day. Pray look at her, and tell 
 me whether she is indisposed or in good health. 
 Mrs.Fox has been magnetized, it must be recol- 
 lected, a preparatory step, invariably, before be- 
 ginning to propound questions.
 
 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. G9 
 
 She apparently gave herself up to profound 
 thoughtfulness — so long continued that I took oc- 
 casion to repeat what I had before said. " Sir," 
 said she, " I am now looking at the poor young 
 lady's foot; how badly it is swollen. Why don't 
 the surgeon draw out the needle which passes 
 directly through the great nerve that turns round 
 the ankle joint to reach the sole ? " Not suc- 
 ceeding in confining her attention to the foot 
 any longer, because it gave her unpleasant emo- 
 tions, I wrote a note the day following to Drs. 
 
 , praying them to search for a needle 
 
 somewhere near the inner maleolar process. 
 They did so, detected it, and immediately ex- 
 tracted it. From that hour she began to recov- 
 er, and in six weeks was restored to her accus- 
 tomed health. 
 
 Another case was submitted to her inspection. 
 The circumstances were essentially these. A 
 gentleman who has always lived freely, though 
 temperately, till he become an alderman, lost 
 his appetite, could not sleep, but seemed never 
 to be satisfied with drinking an Italian liqueur, 
 called marischino. He fed on the lightest fari- 
 naceous food, in small quantities too, and his ab- 
 dominal rotundity was the amazement of all who 
 passed him in his usual morning walks. I had 
 6*
 
 70 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 
 
 not the least acquaintance with this man, what- 
 ever, but his monstrous back struck me always 
 with astonishment. Mrs. Fox was requested to 
 examine the vital organs — which she did, alter- 
 nately, and told me that in his stomach was a 
 living cuttle-fish, over a foot in length. Never 
 did the communication of any intelligence ap- 
 pear more ridiculous. The idea of a squid^ oth- 
 erwise cuttle-fish, being imprisoned, and alive 
 too, in a stomach, exceeded belief. I dared not 
 mention this to any one, for fear of becoming 
 the jest of all rational people in the town. The 
 latter part of October, the great monster man 
 died. A post mortem was had, and there lay 
 the squid brisk as ever. How the creature found 
 admittance, is a problem. The most reasonable 
 thing upon the matter is this, viz. that the Ggg 
 was swallowed and subsequently developed in 
 the stomach,* 
 
 Miss M. T., a maiden lady, of thirty, spare 
 habit, tall, with blue eyes and red hair, had been 
 
 * Miss Brackett detected a diseased spleen in a man, 
 very much in the same manner. The Rev. Mr. Green 
 has a plenty of illustrations of the faculty possessed by 
 somnambulists, of finding out the state of the viscera. A 
 visit to Pawtuxet would be a treat to the well-wishers of 
 magnetism in this country.
 
 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 71 
 
 ailing from her eighteenth year, without having 
 had any permanent relief, akhough she had con- 
 sulted all the medical men of eminence in Bos- 
 ton. She has suffered from a fixed pain in the 
 left side of the chest, the whole time. Blisters, 
 setons, tartar-emetic ointments, besides a whole 
 shop of drugs, had been prescribed, without pro- 
 ducing any sort of relief. Mrs. Fox, with a lit- 
 tle hesitation, pronounced the disease to be a 
 conversion of the left lung into solid stone! and 
 moreover predicted that a judicious administra- 
 tion of Brandreth's pills would restore the lost 
 function of the organ. This information was 
 communicated to her friends, who went to work 
 in earnest to apply the remedy. Seventeen box- 
 es of those invaluable pills cured her.* I learn, 
 
 * By turning to the daily papers, of Nov. 20th, 1837, Dr. 
 Brandreth's advertisement of his arrival in Boston may 
 be seen. It was to give the vegetable pills, that the fami- 
 ly of the lady sent for him. This was the special occasion 
 of this veiy distinguished benefactor's visit to the literary 
 emporium. Had it not been for the interference of polit- 
 ical caucuses, and the public rejoicings on account of the 
 Pawnee delegation of Indians, whose lodgings were on 
 the floor of Concert Hall, Dr. Brandreth would have re- 
 ceived the congratulations of the Society for cradling 
 children. As it was, the Fifty Associates paid him their 
 respects, and bespoke an annual supply of the genuine 
 pills for all their tenants.
 
 72 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 
 
 since the compositor began with the manuscript 
 of this volume, that Miss T. is entirely festered, 
 — and further, that she will enter the silken 
 bonds of wedlock the coming spring. 
 
 Once more. — Sitting, one morning, in the 
 reading-room of the Tremont House, I noticed 
 a Southerner, of respectable, gentlemanly ap- 
 pearance, whose complexion was cadaverous, 
 and otherwise sickly to look at, leaning back in 
 an arm-chair, with the Morning Post in one 
 hand, and the Atlas in the other. By and by, 
 he sprang upon his feet, jarring the furniture, 
 and somewhat disturbing the town-loungers, 
 who haunt that pleasant apartment to the posi- 
 tive annoyance of travellers, swore unutterable 
 execrations against whigs and tories ; and then 
 sunk down upon his knees. Every person pres- 
 ent flew to his assistance; even Mr. J. T., who 
 was never before known to relinquish a newspa- 
 per, however much it might be desired by others, 
 till all the advertisements were read three times 
 over, proffered his services. Mr. Boyden direct- 
 ed the way to a snug parlor, occupied by Mr. 
 Wilson, tliat being his name, in the second sto- 
 ry. A physician came directly, examined the 
 pulse, ordered mustard-seed to the feet, and an 
 ounce of linseed-oil, dissolved in a quart of hot
 
 J^OSt V.S. Atlc'/S
 
 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 73 
 
 water, to be given at suitable intervals, till the 
 whole was consumed-* Pretty soon, the patient 
 opened liis eyes, and so far recovered the tone 
 of the organs of speech, as to say to the by-stand- 
 ers, that he was sorry to have created the pres- 
 ent alarm, because he did not consider himself 
 in any particular danger. He further continued, 
 — that, for the last twenty years of his life, he 
 had been subject to a nephritic complaint, that 
 produced excruciating torment, whenever his 
 mind became excited on politics. Why politics, 
 more than any other subject; should bereave a 
 man of reason, no person has had the sagacity to 
 explain. The monstrous, terribly distorted ac- 
 counts of party aspects in Georgia, the state of 
 his nativity, in the two papers referred to, brought 
 on the old pains, with a host of concomitants, 
 usually attendant. 
 
 After he was quite comfortable, I took my 
 leave, without once intimating my professional 
 
 * An old notion prevails, that oil and water cannot be 
 mixed. It is time this vulgar error should be exposed. 
 Dr. L., kno'tt-n to all the world for his skill, never had any 
 difficulty in combining them. The whole misunderstand- 
 ing between the city authorities and the ex-fire-deparl- 
 ment, arose out of this trifling affair — only one party knew 
 how to mix oil and water.
 
 74 PATHOLOGICAL INC^UIRIES. 
 
 character, and, within a few hours, consulted 
 Mrs. Fox, as to the nature of the morbid condi- 
 tion of Mr. Wilson. No clue was given her to 
 his present or past state, nor did I even intimate 
 what had been witnessed just before. I simply 
 told her that a gentleman at the Tremont House, 
 dressed thus and so, of such and such character- 
 istics, was sick, and I wished for some knowl- 
 edge on the subject. 
 
 She designated him, in her somnambulic prep- 
 aration, from more than one hundred gentle- 
 men, then in the house, and told me as unhesi- 
 tatingly as a person would make a declaration 
 of facts then before their eyes, that a patch of 
 cotton cloth was in contact with his right kid- 
 ney. Cotton cloth touching a man's kidney ! — 
 Impossible ! I exclaimed. She insisted upon it, 
 that there was no mistake in the matter, — the 
 cotton was there, and if an adroit operation was 
 performed, it might yet be extracted, without se- 
 rious discomfiture to the patient. This improb- 
 able description of the cause of Mr. Wilson's 
 nephritics, as I then regarded it, weighed so 
 ponderously upon my mind, that I could not 
 rest with comfort, till 1 called on him, which I 
 was justified in doing, as an act of courtesy, to 
 inquire how he found himself, since the fit. A
 
 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. /5 
 
 general conversation ensued at this call, and 
 by degrees I learned that in his younger days 
 he had been guilty of fighting a duel, and that 
 he was badlv wounded in the small of the back. 
 The wound was healed years and years ago, and 
 he did not conceive that the disease of which he 
 complained had the remotest possible connection 
 with the old wound. I boldly announced to him 
 that a patch of cotton cloth was enclosed in the 
 bed of the kidney, in contact with the psoas 
 muscle, and was the real source of all that he 
 had suffered. He was ultimately persuaded to 
 enter the hospital, where the rag was taken out. 
 It may be seen by visiters, on inquiry, at any 
 time. Now the fact was, the cotton patch was 
 shot from a rifle-pistol, with which the wound 
 was made. Four weeks from the day he left 
 the Tremont, he returned, sound in health and 
 strength. 
 
 Now, can the enemies of Animal Magnetism 
 show any objections to the science, when it thus 
 becomes an important auxiliary to surgery ? — 
 The life of a man was here saved from an un- 
 timely grave, and through the exercise of that 
 very mysterious power, which many, otherwise 
 rational men, hold up to derision and contempt. 
 
 Were selfishness a predominant trait in my
 
 76 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 
 
 character, I might swell this report to inconve- 
 nient dimensions, with cases like the foregoing, 
 corroborative of the advantages that would ac- 
 crue to society, were physicians a little more 
 obliging. They seem to array themselves in 
 hostility to something they know nothing about. 
 I have the independence to disengage myself 
 from the prejudices of my professional brethren, 
 whenever they manifest too much devotion to 
 old theories, to the exclusion of new pathologic- 
 al facts. 
 
 Although magnetizers are pretty common in 
 Boston, and some forty or fifty of the one hun- 
 dred and twelve of its practitioners now treat all 
 febrile, tetanic and parturient affections, by 
 manipulations; the remaining sixty-two are ob- 
 stinate unbelievers. At Nashua, Lowell, Cam- 
 bridge, Concord, Salem, and Worcester, I am 
 sure the light of pure science is shining with 
 some degree of splendor. The endowment of a 
 professorship of Animal IVIagnetism at the Berk- 
 shire Medical Institution, at Fairfield, N. Y., 
 and at Northampton, as a necessary legal prepa- 
 tion before being admitted to the bar, I hail as 
 the dawning of a marvellous light. Those insti- 
 tutions will have the enviable reputation of hav- 
 ing availed themselves of the transcendant ad-
 
 PATHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 77 
 
 vantages of the science, when it was hooted and 
 despised by the ignorant; but the glory of hav- 
 ing sent out polished, learned magnetizers, will 
 redound to their reputation, when the revilers 
 of common sense will have been lost in the rub- 
 bish of eternity. 
 
 Columbia College, Schenectady, the Univer- 
 sity of Vermont, and Yale, have been too cau- 
 tious ; no magnetism is taught in either of their 
 Halls, and hence their classes are yearly falling 
 off*. Old Harvard, on the contrary, the pride of 
 thousands, whose aspirations are for the posteri- 
 ty of their alma mater, has acted nobly in coup- 
 ling Animal Magnetism with the respectable 
 Rumford Professorship of Signs.* 
 
 * What is the matter 1 With all the means of being 
 extensively useful, the classes are not equal to the re- 
 sources of that ancient Institution. It cannot be in conse- 
 quence of there being too many sinecures. No, nor is 
 there any want of talent in those who control its opera- 
 tions. Even the elocution of the radical Dr. Barber, pro- 
 fessor of phrenolog}', elocution jelly, commentator general 
 on all things but just those which were absolutely necessary 
 for a student to know, had not sufficient influence to mul- 
 tiply sophomores, beyond the ordinary number. Is any 
 man's knowledge honored at Cambridge, whose family 
 has not the means of adding to the funds 1 Genius finds 
 Qo encouragement at Harvard. 
 7
 
 CHAPTER Vir. 
 
 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. 
 
 No one entertains a more decidedly contempt- 
 ible opinion of those who deal in slanders and 
 inuendoes, than myself: and I would onnocon- 
 sideratio!! be instrumental in stirring up strife 
 between different political partisans, however 
 open they may have laid themselves to severe 
 animadversion. It so happened, repeatedly, that 
 Mrs. Fox was left in a magnetic state, after 
 any particular series of observations had been 
 made, with a view of affording her rest, a more 
 comfortable rest than she could have had in 
 a noisy, bustling city, had she been always 
 awakened by transverse passes. She was thus 
 insulated completely, neither hearing the voices' 
 of those about her, unless purposely put in 
 magnetic communication, nor taking cogni- 
 zance of any transactions within the immediate
 
 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. /» 
 
 household. If the sleep was likely to be improp- 
 erly prolonged, her daughter, who was always 
 vigilant, broke the spell, and thus restored her 
 to voluntary action. 
 
 It was under the foregoing circumstances, 
 when alone, that she indulged the characteristic 
 curiosity of the sex, to look through society and 
 see what mankind were about behind the scenes. 
 As the engrossing topic in the early part of No- 
 vember related to the coming election, she di- 
 rected her eyes, one rainy evening, to the head- 
 quarters of the couiity Committee. Nothing, of 
 course could be heard, but the significant gestic- 
 ulations of the members was not to be misappre- 
 hended or wrongfully interpreted. A catalogue 
 of names was laid on the table before the pre- 
 siding officer, who cast a knowing eye to it, then 
 took it up, pointed to several of the names, di- 
 recting the attention of the association to one, 
 particularly. He seized a tumbler of water, 
 which was raised to the lips, but he never tasted a 
 drop of it — shaking his head violently, still look- 
 ing and pointing at the ominous name, as much 
 as to say, this candidate for the people's suff- 
 rages, drinks no water. At this they all raised 
 their right hands, as they do at the police court. 
 It was supposed, therefore, that a vote was taken,
 
 80 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. 
 
 for the president forthwith erased it with seem- 
 ing satisfaciion.* Mrs. Fox thought she discov- 
 ered here an evident influence of the spirit of 
 temperance. Every person at all conversant 
 with the doings of the Whig General Committee, 
 knows that no individual, known to be an habitual 
 consumer of ardent spirit, was in nomination for 
 any office in the gift of the inhabitants. t Long 
 may this happy change in the public sentiment 
 remain. It has purged the Legislature, as it has 
 the national councils, of brutes in the shape of 
 men. Let no drunkard or moderate tippler, be a 
 candidate for office, however humble or exalted, 
 in a community in which there are rights to be 
 
 * When a certain notoriously sober candidate was of- 
 ficially informed that the State could dispense with his 
 services, he made bitter lamentations. Since that event- 
 ful day he has been heard to mutter in the purlieus of 
 Court Square, at high twelve, the first line of the first 
 verse of the ninth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah. 
 
 t There is still room for improvement, which will be 
 expressly pointed out in a forth-coming production. Some 
 very decently respectable dead-weights upon societ)'' may 
 rely upon having faithful portraits. Mrs. Fox has looked 
 in upon them at their secret haunts, and wonders that thfeir 
 incipient carbuncled visages, their gourmand appetites, 
 and utter rotteness of character, is not perceived. But the 
 day of developments is at hand.
 
 I7z& Coimtv lo7?27rnttee.
 
 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. 
 
 81 
 
 preserved, principles to maintain, or a code of 
 morals to be respected. 
 
 Another name was called. The President 
 also turned it to the committee, showing, by his 
 smiling expression, that no difficulties were in the 
 way. All voted, as they did before, and each one 
 wrote it on a skeleton ticket for convenient ref- 
 erence. Up came another, and yet another, till 
 one of the committee by an infuriated look, suc- 
 ceeded in arresting the voting process, on the 
 eve of being made. He rose in his place and 
 swang about both arms as freely as though they 
 were tied to the shoulders by a thong. One or 
 two evidently tried to stop him, but ineffectual- 
 ly, as he began to stamp, and finally took up an 
 ink-stand. It was not thrown at the chair, as 
 Mrs. Fox momentarily expected ; still, by his ve- 
 hement manner against the apparent determina- 
 tion of the committee, he fairly carried the 
 point ; for, rather than prolong a discussion, 
 the names of two of the best citizens of Boston 
 were expunged, — a sacrifice to the caprice of 
 one who has neither talent or character, but the 
 reputation of being a noisy meddler. ♦' This 
 individual," said Mrs. Fox, ** whose face is fa- 
 miliar to me now, having since recognized him 
 in the streets, and sought out both his name
 
 82 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. 
 
 and place, never was admitted into the society 
 of well-bred people. He was conscious that he 
 had no claims upon them, and never obtruded 
 where, both by habit and feeling, he would 
 have felt no companionship ; yet, in this polit- 
 ical relationship, all his acquired prejudices 
 against individuals superior to himself, were 
 suffered to pass unrebuked, because it was con- 
 sidered expedient to compromise, that is, hu- 
 mor his dislikes, that others might be accom- 
 modated in turn." In this manner a list of rep- 
 resentatives is made out for the dear people, — 
 a mere machine, with hands, to drop votes into 
 a ballot-box. 
 
 Having scrutinized one of the belligerent par- 
 ties in popular political array, she called in up- 
 on an assembly of Van Burenites, a small body, 
 but extravagantly excited. The room was suf- 
 focatingly full of ardent patriots. Seeing was 
 an unsatisfactory gratification, — and she regret- 
 ted that Magnetism had not done for the ear 
 what it had for the eye. None of the party ap- 
 peared to be in pain, though their visages were 
 occasionally shockingly distorted. This could 
 not be accounted for by any common rules of 
 judging. Matters were conducted much as they 
 were in the other conclave, with this exception,
 
 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. 83 
 
 — when the president had gone through a sin- 
 gularly significant pantomime, seemingly well 
 understood, anjd appreciated too, by those in 
 front of the desk, (for they frowned simultane- 
 ously,) he held up a broad sheet, inscribed with a 
 host of names. For a while, there was an ap- 
 parent stillness ; at least, no one moved a limb, 
 and it was therefore supposed the whole ticket 
 was read aloud. By and by, up went ail hands. 
 This was an acceptance by acclamation. No 
 erasures, no index fingers, no speeches indi- 
 cated dissatisfaction, — the whole, unbroken and 
 unmutilated, met their entire approbation. At 
 this point of the exhibition, Mrs. Fox withdrew 
 her attention and left them, as she entered, in 
 spirit, unknown and unseen. She said to me, 
 afterwards, that she came to the conclusion, 
 from the unanimity of the gentlemen at this cau- 
 cus, that they only wanted numbers at the poles, 
 to carry any measure they chose, however Uto- 
 pian or radical in its tendency, 
 
 Once, and but once, Mrs. Fox indulged her- 
 self with an interior view of the White House, 
 at Washington. There sat a little bald-pated 
 man at a writing-table, quite alone, reading in a 
 venerable old book. He neither appeared un- 
 happy, or discovered, by any muscle of the face.
 
 84 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. 
 
 that the mind was particularly joyful. The 
 hour was late, — fires were out, servants had re- 
 tired, and everything bespoke oi'der and quiet- 
 ness: studious, without bustle ; thoughtful, be- 
 cause the author evidently gave activity to his 
 mind ; he continued in one unchanged position 
 till Mrs. Fox shrunk from the apartment with a 
 deep sense of having done a ruder act than she 
 cared to be guilty of " If that was the President 
 of the United States," she jocosely remarked, 
 *' he cares much less about the political aspect of 
 the times, than any person within the pale of the 
 General Government." 
 
 With considerable hesitation, she consented 
 to call on the Post-Master-General. He seemed 
 not at all conscious of the presence of any per- 
 son in the snug niche in which he was writing. 
 He would screw and twist himself into all imag- 
 inable facial contortions, showing that his mind 
 was in precisely the same uncomfortable state. 
 When a few sentences were finished, by erasures, 
 crosses, and numerous interlineations, easing 
 back for the favorable assistance of the lamp, he 
 read the composition to himself, and then bowed 
 himself to the labor again of parturiating anoth- 
 er sentiment. Over the top of the sheet was a 
 coarse superscription, thus : — '' For the Globe.^'
 
 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. 85 
 
 Mrs. Fox had read of the Globe, and Mr. 
 Blair^ Printer of Congress, &c., but had never 
 seen either. The Past-Master's composition 
 induced her to go a little farther. She did so, 
 and made the editor a regular visitation. In an 
 apartment adjoining the principal press-room of 
 the Globe office, sat a man before an expiring 
 fire, partially enveloped in newspapers, smoking 
 and reading, as though he fully enjoyed both. 
 Occasionally he laid down the cigar, to cut out a 
 line, — having then lying on the table a dozen 
 strips thus selected, cut and dried for the com- 
 positor. After waiting considerably longer than 
 she considered it proper, — not being at any time 
 able to divest herself of the idea that she was as 
 visible to others as they were to her, and feel- 
 ing but poorly compensated for the trip to Wash- 
 ington, the capital was abandoned altogether. 
 She expressed herself heartily cured of all po- 
 litical biases, either one way or the other, — be- 
 ing satisfied, from personal observation, that the 
 men whom party favor has elevated to the pin- 
 nacles of fame, by giving them all that the re- 
 sources of a nation have to bestow, viz. wealth, 
 present honor, and a name on the page of histo- 
 ry, care much less about their worshii)pers than 
 they can be made to believe. Though she saw
 
 86 PEEPS AT GREAT PEOPLE. 
 
 but a few public functionaries, and those en- 
 gaged, they were men of quiet deportment, unob- 
 trusive, for they were entirely aJone ; and she 
 came away impressed with the idea, that not 
 one of them cared a straw for those who have 
 borne the brunt of the battle to make them men 
 of historical renown.* 
 
 * Since the above was written, Mrs. Fox could not for- 
 bear taking a look down State Street. Though Mr. Fox 
 had nothing at stake in the Commonwealth Bank, she 
 knew that others had, and her discoveries, five days before 
 the bursting of the bubble, were truly exciting. Moral 
 honesty was there, personified, and the directors, to a man, 
 fed sparingly, for more than a week, well knowing that 
 dieting was necessary for men in whom lurked the seeds 
 of pecuniary dissolution. A further examination will be 
 had, and the public may rely upon a post-mortem examin- 
 ation of each individual, directly, who has figured as an 
 automaton in the hands of fraudulent public functionaries 
 in the precincts of the White House. 
 
 " Beg, that thou muy'st have leave to hang thyself: 
 And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the State, 
 Thou hast not left the value of a cord ; 
 Therefore, thou must be hanged at the State's charge. 
 
 Merchant of Venics.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 Hours were occasionally devoted to the ap- 
 pearance of things in those profound labyrinths 
 of the earth, where no combinations of human 
 ingenuity can display them ; but I am admon- 
 ished, by the voluminousness to which this me- 
 moir tends, to forego the relation of many stir- 
 ring displays of Mrs. Fox's splendid gift of 
 clairvoyance, to chronicle the wonders of those 
 distant worlds in the far heavens, which have 
 wheeled through the unsurveyed regions of the 
 sky, in their appropriate orbits, where the same 
 controlling power that bid the restless ocean to 
 limit the action of its proud waves, has kept 
 them in their prescribed routes, since that event- 
 ful period when they were first launched into 
 the boundless regions of space. 
 
 One pleasant afternoon, business having been
 
 0» WOxXDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 perfectly arranged, that there might be no un- 
 necessary interruption, — Madam, said I, it 
 would oblige me if you would inspect the moon. 
 The proposition was quite acceptable. She had 
 herself often had it in contemplation to try the 
 entire strength of her vision, to points beyond 
 those to which it had heretofore been exerted. 
 
 Perhaps thirty minutes elapsed in getting in 
 readiness for observation, and full fifteen more 
 before the moon was recognized. The reason 
 of this was, that hundreds of asteroids, or small 
 opaque bodies were continually flitting before 
 her eyes, greatly impeding the view. By and 
 by she fastened upon it, a huge dark world. 
 Mountains and alternate vallies, as described by 
 astronomers, were the first displays on its gib- 
 bous surface. She was then requested to exam- 
 ine the side which, being always turned from 
 the earth, never has been seen, even in outline, 
 by the best telescopes. That portion, therefore, 
 is terra incognita. No glasses can reach it ; but 
 she could penetrate its very centre, and come 
 out on the opposite point. 
 
 Instantly, as it were, she exclaimed, *' I see a 
 long lake, on the margin of which are the queer- 
 est animals imaginable. They neither resem- 
 ble horses or men, yet they have four legs ; the
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 89 
 
 hind ones being hooted, but the forennost have 
 claws, long and slender." I urged upon her the 
 importance of marking every particular in the 
 external organization, which I am bound to be- 
 lieve she did with much truth and discretion. 
 In order to make me comprehend their structure, 
 a sketch was made on the spot, corresponding 
 with their exact outline in every respect, which 
 her skill in drawing enabled her to produce with 
 considerable facility. 
 
 The fore legs, or arms, were a third longer, 
 according to the picture, than the others, and 
 were covered, as was the whole body, with bright 
 green feathers. Each claw had just three fingers, 
 terminated by a hooked nail, a foot in length. 
 The body bore a little resemblance to that of an 
 ostrich, so that when one of them stood erect, 
 as many of them did on their hind feet, the legs 
 appeared to be articulated to the middle of 
 the abdomen. The lower portion of the belly, 
 therefore, hung down like an inverted one, be- 
 tween the thighs. This was further eked out 
 into a short tail^ tufted with a silky kind of 
 hair. In an upright position, the tail came 
 within three feet of the ground. This position 
 was obviously an uncomfortable one, as the tip of 
 the claws, first one side and then the other, were 
 8
 
 90 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS, 
 
 frequently dropt to the plane of the feet, to main- 
 tain a perpendicular. From the union of the 
 arms at the top of the chest, a neck, full twelve 
 feet long, shot out, not more than four inches in 
 diameter, fringed with the same beautiful green 
 hair on the inferior side, like a flowing mane, dis- 
 coverable on the tail. Nothing could be more 
 striking than the configuration of the head, 
 bearing some slight resemblance to an ele- 
 phant's ; instead of a proboscis, on each side, 
 where ears are located on terrestrial animals, 
 two lonor, slender, flexible tubes took their origin. 
 They were moved about with the most perfect 
 freedom, in all directions, and through them 
 they probably breathed. A mouth was no where 
 detected, on or about the cranium ; but a valvu- 
 lar opening at the root of the neck, into which an 
 odd species of crab was introduced, unquestion- 
 ably fulfilled the offices of a mouth. While some 
 of these monsters were wading in an erect pos- 
 ture, dragging the bottom with their wide-spread- 
 ing claws, others sat sunning themselves on the 
 bank, rubbing themselves with handfuls of leaves, 
 or searching each other's feathers for vermin. 
 They appeared social in character, though rath- 
 er irritable. In actual bulk, they exceeded a 
 moose. No climate, apparently, could be finer, 
 the air seeming to be mild and agreeable.
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 91 
 
 All the shrubbery about the lake was strange- 
 ly stinted, though of a lively green; even the 
 rocks, as well as the soil, were extremely green.* 
 Perhaps two miles from that ever-to-be-remem- 
 bered aquatic spot, a cluster of rude huts rose to 
 view, confined to the brow of a mountain so vast- 
 ly high that no attempt was ever made, at a sub- 
 sequent hour of leisure, to measure its altitude. 
 The huts were shaped much like inverted bas- 
 kets, the doors being low, hardly four feet high, 
 yet Mrs. Fox had a fair opportunity of peeping 
 directly into a number of them. Neither fire or 
 smoke were discernible any where on the moon, 
 
 * Mrs. Fox differs but a liille, in her description of lu- 
 nar scenery, from Miss Brackett, who avers that she has 
 been there twice. Miss Brackett, in some respects, was 
 more fortunate in her observations than our Boston friend, 
 as she certainly saw savage men, and once caught them 
 eating out of a wooden bowl, with their bare hands Now 
 Mrs. Fox was satisfied of the existence of an atmosphere 
 in the moon ; whereas, Miss Brackett had great diiticulties 
 to overcome on arriving in its neighborhood, on account 
 of not having a physical organization for existing without 
 air. After this fact was ascertained, she invariably held 
 her breath all the time. Mrs. Fox had no such vexations, 
 because the axis of vision was only elongated, and the 
 spirit remained at home. Miss Brackett, on the other 
 hand, merely left her body behind, while the soul drifted 
 ofl' in personse;
 
 92 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 which confirms her in the opinion that no use 
 whatever is made of that element, there, even 
 by those beings possessing the most intelligence. 
 Within the huts, the young of the animals or 
 men, whichever they may be hereafter denomi- 
 nated, were sleeping on piles of lunar vegetables. 
 Hither and thither, troops of this second order of 
 animated figures were loitering about the settle- 
 ment. None of them exceeded the height of a 
 yard-stick. All were perfectly naked, though 
 profusely ornamented with evergreens entwined 
 around their limbs. Although they had but two 
 arms and two legs, growing from nearly the 
 same point each side of the abdomen, from the 
 usual place of the navel, a fifth limb had its ori- 
 gin, eight feet long. In appearance it was of 
 bone, but made up of a series of distinct articula- 
 tions, over which they exercised a complete volun- 
 tary control. When not in use, it was rolled up out 
 of the way, in a compact manner, like the main- 
 spring of a watch. The only possible use Mrs. 
 Fox could discover of this extraordinary piece of 
 vital mechanism, was this. The creature would 
 project the end till it touched the ground, when, 
 suddenly throwing itself into a horizontal posi- 
 tion, keep straightening the instrument, joint by 
 joint, till the body was fearfully balanced on
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 93 
 
 the very top of a slender pole, as it were. This 
 done, the individual commenced whirling on its 
 axis with inconceivable velocity, hours together. 
 She saw, on several occasions, hundreds of them 
 all amusino; themselves tocrether in front of the 
 village of huts, in this singular manner. Anoth- 
 er move was made, and she swept the landscape 
 over hills and dales, looking with intense inter- 
 est on those unexplored lunar fields. Quadru- 
 peds were quite common, though not large. 
 Generally, they were analogous to the feline 
 races of our earth, but varying in this essential 
 particular; they are all of the same bright green 
 by which the semi-bipeds were characterized. 
 Their paws, in all she saw, were disproportion- 
 ably large and long, and, moreover, they were, 
 as a race, distinguished by appendices to the 
 head, somewhat like miniature probosces. The 
 mechanical advantages of those flexible tubes 
 were of infinite value in holding on at the 
 abrupt sides of the mountains, their natural 
 abodes, about which they habitually roamed. 
 Birds with four eyes are common in the moon. 
 Their heads, and the shape is uniform in all the 
 specimens of lunar ornithology, were perfectly 
 round, and seemed too ponderous to be supported 
 with ease at the extremity of their long, slender 
 8*
 
 94 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 necks. While at rest, they stood erect, as pen- 
 guins do, — looking towards all points of the com- 
 pass, without at all changing the position of 
 either head or body. Mrs. Fox once counted 
 thirty-seven birds all on the wing at once, coining 
 down from a mountain. Some of them were of 
 the dimensions of wild geese, whilst others in 
 the same flock extended their enormous wings 
 over forty feet. 
 
 Serpents of monstrous dimensions were al- 
 ways plenty in all the vallies, — covered, too, 
 entirely with green feathers. This is an anom- 
 aly which no philosopher, no, not even the 
 most ingenious, has succeeded in explaining 
 upon satisfactory principles, why all the lunar 
 beings of the inferior orders should be clothed 
 in green feathers. When those terrific snakes 
 were running, frequent and sudden stops were 
 made, as though they were alarmed by a noise. 
 
 Then slowly raising their blood-red heads, 
 full thirty feet in the air, they gazed round a 
 while, and then resumed their rapid progress. 
 Mrs. Fox assured me that the skeleton seen 
 under the white house in Hartford, was not more 
 offensively horrible than the green serpents of 
 the moon. While gazing intently upon one, as it 
 came winding down the rugged sides of a moun-
 
 A Lu77ar Ao CO motive.
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 95 
 
 lain, parti:illy in sight one moment, then con- 
 cefiled the next by the dark shadows of over- 
 hanging rocks, or by the rocks themselves, it 
 came rushing into view, with five new animals, 
 different from any she had then seen, mounted 
 on its back. In truth, they were riding, and a 
 fleet movement it was too, for they rarely run at 
 a less rate than the cars on tlie Worcester rail- 
 road.* As the serpent neared the plain, the 
 peculiarities of the bodily shape of the volti- 
 geurs were distinctly considered. Having dis- 
 mounted, |the obedient serpent vermiculated 
 wherever it chose, which renders it certain that 
 the race has become subservient to the wants 
 
 * Mrs. Fox has permitted me to introduce a note here, 
 to correct what would otherwise not have expressed her 
 ideas in the text. When the figure or comparison was made 
 of the relative velocity of the lunar serpents to rail-road 
 speed, she was supposing that the Worcester road was 
 distinguished for its rapidity; but has the mortification, on 
 inquiry, to learn that the corporation have abandoned 
 steam power altogether, and now employ a large variety 
 of snails, called the Carrackfurgus breed, to drag passen- 
 ger between Boston and Worcester — fare $2, which in 
 humble imitation of the Mede and Persian code, is never 
 to be changed, blow high or low : — a fig for hard times ; — 
 let the people slay at home if they can't afford the regular 
 price.
 
 96 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 and necessities of the inhabitants, who have 
 domesticated them for personal service. 
 
 The men, for so Mrs. Fox felt constrained to 
 call them, were of the common stature of the 
 native Bangorians. They were offensively 
 naked, with the single exception of a mantle 
 suspended from the neck, which resembled the 
 bark of a tree. Their legs were remarkably- 
 short, and terminated by claws. Their arms 
 were full of joints, after the fashion of the 
 umbilical apparatus in those she first saw at 
 the lake, and, at their extremities, were quite 
 broad, long-fingered hands. 
 
 One of them, after a variety of raanoeuverings, 
 set a tri-cornered dish on the ground, out of 
 which they gluttonously fed themselves with the 
 proboscis. When the meal was finished, the 
 prehensile mouth was drawn within the head. 
 Females could not be identified from males, nor 
 were any young ones observed ; the group was 
 therefore considered to be constituted wholly of 
 adults. 
 
 Another section of the lunar surface, judged 
 to be six hundred miles from the habitation of 
 the feathered serpents, was brought into ocular 
 view. Mrs. Fox embraced, in the field of her 
 telesopic vision, about eight hundred square
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 97 
 
 mountains, indented, at their summits, in the 
 form of craters; — but in lieu offire being vomit- 
 ed from their towering peaks, a column of 
 moulten liquid kept heaving and boiling over 
 the brims, and then trickled down their gibbous 
 sides to the profound abyss below. All the 
 rivers in the vicinity of these mountains were 
 probably filled with heated water. 
 
 It would not have occurred to Mrs. Fox that 
 such was the fact, had she not fortunately been 
 favored with a novel exhibition, confirmatory of 
 this theory. While watching a body of scoriae, 
 earth and roots bound .together in a confused 
 cake, as it floated down the current through the 
 province of JMontani, (so christened on account of 
 the general aspect of the country) one of the cat- 
 like animals heretofore described, came leaping 
 down the rocky sides of a terribly steep elevation, 
 pursued by a phalanx of beasts altogether new, 
 differing most singularly from any others brought 
 before her. As the poor frightened cat reached 
 the bank, it sprang with prodigious muscular 
 agility into the midst of the stream, with the in- 
 tention, doubtless, of landing on the floating 
 mass, — but, missing it — souse she went, entirely 
 under, and though submerged scarcely four 
 seconds, when she came to the surface, every
 
 98 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 vestage of skin had been stripped or scalded 
 from the body. All the bare cords and sinews 
 were exposed, even to their origin and insertion 
 on the bones. With the fore paws resting on 
 the edge of the rolling island a moment only, 
 away the miserably creature fell again, and 
 never afterwards came into view. 
 
 No mortal ever beheld such unearthly figures 
 before, as were those in pursuit of the moon-cat. 
 They were exceedingly like toads, only alto- 
 gether superior to those harmless reptiles in 
 size — for they exceeded nine feet in length, by 
 five in breadth across the shoulders. Besides, 
 they had long tails curled over upon the back, 
 armed with three spurs at the end. They pro- 
 jected themselves by leaps, with the hind legs, 
 from seven to ten rods at each successive spring, 
 which gave them manifest advantages over other 
 quadrupeds in point of rapid progression. Good 
 evidence was made of their carnivorous pro- 
 pensity, as Mrs.Fox saw one of them, in apparent 
 rage, grasp the head of a companion, which 
 was severed from the body in a twinkling, and 
 afterwards leisurely eaten, — showing the canibal 
 disposition of the race ; others sprang upon the 
 body, tearing it into shreds, which was devoured 
 with ravenous despatch. More than half of this
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 99 
 
 great troop of moon-toads gave off from the sur- 
 face of their heads a dense exhalation, like 
 tobacco smoke. It curled and twined above 
 them, like halos round the winter stars. 
 
 A characteristic of animated nature in the 
 moon, is facial gravity. All the animals pre- 
 sent the expression of deep solemnity or sober- 
 ness. No playfulness of disposition seems to be 
 manifested on any occasion ; but a melancholy 
 sort of sedateness, even when stimulated by the 
 chase, or the presence of society, marks all 
 their movements.* 
 
 Near by the grand toad locality, a new scene 
 broke in upon her excited vision, indescribably 
 thrillinxr. It was a magnificent fountain in the 
 middle of an extensive plain, throwing up a jet 
 
 * It was suggested that they were probably living iu 
 fear of being deposited in the cabinet of some Natural 
 History Society, those modern Golgothas, in which there 
 are more specimens than science. It must be a melan- 
 choly prospect to reflecting animals, — such as monkeys 
 and dromedaries, that if they fall into the hands of any 
 one of the legion of honorary members, there will be no 
 peace to their manes. — There is one gentleman in North 
 America who has the distinguished honor of not being a 
 member of any society, — all the rest of the population, 
 however, able to pay assessments, are enrolled somewhere, 
 —and each one is learned in proportion to his money.
 
 100 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 of liquid fire, like molten brass, full three miles 
 in perpendicular height. When it had reached 
 its destined altitude, the summit exceeded in 
 brilliancy an auroral illumination on terra firma, 
 or a shower of meteors on the thirteenth of 
 November.* Whatever the fluid mass might be 
 — it foamed and sparkled in gorgeous splendor, — 
 and when uptost by the resistless force below, it 
 dashed back again upon the margin of the 
 mighty chasm through which it came, in con- 
 vulsive pulsations. Even at the vast distance at 
 which Mrs. Fox was seated from this pyrotechy 
 of the moon, the scintillations of dazzling light 
 were quite too concentrated for her eyes. 
 
 Within twelve miles, judging by comparison, 
 of the burning fountain, a populous settlement 
 rose into view. In the first place, there were 
 
 * On the 13th of November, annually, over the city of 
 New Haven, the stars of the firmament play most singular 
 antics ; the entertainment usually closes at daylight in the 
 morning, by the spontaneous fall of several hundred fire- 
 brands. This phenomenon is significantly called Olm- 
 steacfs Benefit Night, because he feels at liberty to re- 
 deluge the learned Vv-ith a milk and water theory in the 
 American Journal of Science. The first idea of the 
 double cylinder stove, invented by the professor to warm 
 houses without heal, was first suggested by watching ihe ' 
 zenith on the 13ih.
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 101 
 
 just twenty-four fabrics, in color like granite, 
 shaded with a changeable blue, built up against 
 rocks, which projected from the sides and base 
 of the mountains.* Some were twenty feet — 
 some a little less, and one exceeded the height of 
 the Park Street steeple. Into this unique taber- 
 nacle, or it is possible tiiat it may be a public 
 building devoted to secular business, a long pro- 
 cession was entering, at the instant of being 
 seen, — each individual of which, bearing upon 
 the head, a great green serpent, coiled into the 
 smallest convenient compass. 
 
 Every person in the procession had a proboscis, 
 clearly discoverable, but the shape of the head 
 could not be ascertained, on account of the 
 burden upon the shoulders, which concealed it. 
 Their legs were similar to those of the camel, 
 protected at the knees by thick projecting culicu- 
 lar pads. Thus, in general form of organization, 
 
 * On perusing Incidents of Travels,by a pert young law- 
 yer, of New York, the reader will be satisfied, as far as 
 the weight of evidence is concerned, that the description 
 of the excavated city of Petra, the capital of Idumea, — 
 where Esau took up his abode, after separating from his 
 brother Jacob, was copied verbatim from Mrs. Fox's notes 
 on the architecture of the moon. How little confidence is 
 to be placed in travellers — why I would liardly believe 
 Willis the dandy poet, — 'pon his honor. 
 9
 
 102 
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 they were bona-fide men, with the exception of 
 short tails stuck through the seats of their kilts, 
 which were briskly moved as though they were 
 brushing away a cloud of insects. 
 
 Being perfectly exhausted with these anoma- 
 lous sights, so much at variance with all to which 
 she had before been accustomed, Mrs. Fox 
 expressed an unwillingness to pursue the inquiry 
 any longer. Reluctantly, to be sure, I was 
 compelled to acquiesce in the determination, 
 anxious as I was to know more, by the only 
 certain means the world has known, of that 
 nearest planetary body, about which philosophers 
 have speculated since the commencement of the 
 history of man. Aided as they have been for 
 the last seventy years, by glasses of immense 
 magnifying power, astronomers have after all 
 presented us with only a bare outline of its 
 geological features. No progress can be made 
 in minute surveys by telescopes. To Mrs. Fox, 
 then, is the age indebted for the clearest, most 
 probable and circumstantial accounts of its 
 natural productions and physical appearances. 
 
 More than a fortnight passed away before the 
 lady could divest her mind of the images of 
 those beings ; they seemed to haunt her in her 
 slumbers, and occupy her thoughts through the
 
 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 103 
 
 day. There is an inconceivable feeling in 
 realizing, that of the countless billions of human 
 beings who have been upon the stage since the 
 creation, she alone has been the only solitary 
 individual permitted to witness the actual con- 
 dition of the moon. 
 
 However, after exercising as much patience, 
 as a person could in the excited state to which 
 these discoveries had raised me, at the end of two 
 weeks Mr. Fox called at my lodgings one sunny 
 morning, to announce the agreeable intelligence 
 that his lady felt sufficiently recruited to recom- 
 mence a tour in the heavens. Nothing could 
 have been more acceptable ; and the same after- 
 noon, with but little preparation for the long pro- 
 posed journey, Mrs. Fox ascended to the planet 
 Saturn. 
 
 Were I to be minute in chronicling every 
 exclamation that dropped from her lips, or re- 
 peat her thousands of surprises on reaching the 
 scene of new wonders, which this jaunt opened 
 to her wondering gaze, tliere would be scarcely 
 room for any thing else. 
 
 Being heartily and devotedly intent on record- 
 ing simple facts, which I feel a presentiment are 
 to be guiding stars in after times in the sublime 
 study of astrcgiomy,— and withal, sensible of the
 
 104 WONDERS OF OTHER WORLDS. 
 
 impetus that will necessarily be given to the 
 noblest of the exact sciences, it is liardly worth 
 while to apologize for keeping to the letter of 
 the developments. In the appendix of a forth- 
 coming volume, on which I am engaged, with 
 reference to reconciling these discoveries to the 
 known principles of optics, embracing numerous 
 notes and practical illustrations for a college text- 
 book,* it will be my purpose to introduce 
 various collateral proofs and observations that 
 could not with propriety be interwoven here, 
 without swelling the present memoir to incon- 
 venient dimensions. 
 
 * I hke to keep promising, like a pet bank, that some- 
 thing is forthcoming. This is a mode of keeping the 
 world on the qui vive. A general plan of my proposed 
 literary undertakings for the ensuing spring, bear a strik- 
 ing-resemblance to Mr. Graham's lectures on the laws of 
 life. Call on ihree hundred and four of his famished fol- 
 lowers in the city of Boston, for particulars, or Fanny 
 Wright Durismont's disciples, which are as plenty as 
 quack doctors, ten to a street. 
 
 " There is enough written upon this earth, 
 To stir a mutiny in the mildest thought, 
 And arm the minds of infants to exclaim," — 
 
 Titus Andronicus.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 Never were astronomers more greatly deceiv- 
 ed, than in all they have told us of the planet 
 Saturn. In the first place, its magnitude is but 
 about one-eighth of what those retailers of the 
 marvellous have unwarrantably represented. 
 An ocular deception is something of an apology 
 for them ; but, with their high pretensions to 
 accuracy, they ought to have detected that pecu- 
 liar law of light which gives an apparent increase 
 to a body at certain distances. When parallel 
 rays leave a luminous object in celestial space, 
 at ten trillions of leagues from the sun, the true 
 magnitude of that body from which the rays are 
 reflected, are inversely as the square of the 
 distance.* 
 
 * Those only, possessing the true phrenological bumpifi- 
 cations, will fathom these propositions. Education does
 
 106 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 Probably this is the first public effort to cor- 
 rect the blunders of those nomades of the upper 
 air. Again, they describe Saturn as being sur- 
 rounded or rather embraced by two vast rings, 
 one within the other, with a space intervening 
 of some thousands of miles ; and, lastly, give a 
 climax to their romantic description, by declar- 
 ing that he is attended, in his endless circuit, by 
 seven obedient moons. 
 
 For the honor of science, and for the honor 
 too of these United States, I hope the press will 
 lend its energetic aid in sweeping away the mist 
 of ignorance which has thus far enveloped this 
 sublime study, by circulating far and wide the 
 revelations of this chapter. But, were the frater- 
 nity of type-setters to withhold their important 
 co-operation, the light of reason, the doctrine of 
 analogies, and, above all, the free spirit of com- 
 mon sense, ere long, must totally overthrow the 
 
 nothing towards instilling ideas ; there must be a cerebral 
 organization, sui generis, to be an astronomer. In Mas- 
 sachusetts, lamentable as it is, there are bat two classes 
 of individuals who can profit by the exposition of this fun- , 
 damental law of light, viz. the editors of Almanacs and 
 the gentlemen conducting the celebrated trigonometrical 
 survey under the auspices of the legislature. To the lu- 
 cid report of the latter, airthe people are referred, who pay 
 taxes.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 107 
 
 monstrous absurdities of the present boasted tri- 
 umphs of modern astronomy. 
 
 Mrs. Fox watched those great horizontal hoops 
 which encircle Saturn, many tedious hours before 
 discovering their true composition and their util- 
 ity in the economy of that planet. At length 
 the point was gained ; for there was an unfold- 
 ing, as it were, of the mystery of their structure 
 and relationship to their primary. Instead of 
 two rings, there is but one, and that is nothing 
 more nor less than a collection of water, so exact- 
 ly balanced in space, that, having once been set 
 in motion and partaken of the rotary movement 
 of Saturn, whose diurnal and forward velocity 
 is prodigious, inconceivably rapid, full a million 
 of miles a day, that the aqueous collection can 
 never become erratic or wander from its pre. 
 scribed orbit. The momentum it has acquired 
 maintains its integrity. 
 
 When the solar heat acts upon one half of it, 
 as it does, fifteen years at a time, alternately, 
 first on one side and then on the other, an ira, 
 mensiiy of it is evaporated. As the vapor ex- 
 pands till it comes within the attractive influence 
 of the planet, whose atmosphere is cold as Green- 
 land, it is instantly condensed, and falls on por- 
 tions of Saturn iii copious rains. Periodical
 
 103 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 rains, therefore, are established there, as in equa- 
 torial latitudes on our earth. In the West In- 
 dies, for example, the rainy season lasts about 
 three months ; but there, fifteen complete years. 
 On the other hand, when this water exhales 
 from the deluged soil, vegetation, &c., the incli- 
 nation of the sun is such in regard to the ring, 
 that it becomes extremely cold on that half of 
 the planet, even several degrees below the ordi- 
 nary temperattire indicated by a thermometer in 
 theStreights of Sunday. Thus, the vapor, as it is 
 raised by solar might, rushes off till it meets the 
 distant atmosphere, when it again becomes con- 
 densed and mingles with its primitive element 
 in the ring. Thus, there is a ceaseless action 
 continually going on between Saturn and his 
 watery belt ; the former being fertilized and in- 
 vigorated by the water, which is returned home 
 when the object of its mission has been accom- 
 plished. 
 
 What an admirable arrangement is this ! 
 Could puny man, the little thing of a day, with 
 all his boasted intelligence, contrive mechanism 
 like this ? Who can contemplate these glorious 
 displays, this harmonious circle of action, pro- 
 ducing, in a far distant world, all the benefits de- 
 rived from the regular succession of day and
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 109 
 
 night, although of fifteen years uninterrupted 
 duration, and not exclaim that he is of no ac- 
 count in the undefined universe, — an invisible 
 moat, floating on the ocean of time 1 * 
 
 By repeated observations, Mrs. Fox ascertain- 
 ed, for a moral certainty, that the seven satellites 
 so constantly adverted to in connection with 
 Saturn, are pure balls of fire, playing about their 
 primary, underthe restraints imposed upon them 
 by well-known laws of attraction and repulsion. 
 Without those hot bodies and the device of their 
 harmonious arrangement, another of those glori- 
 
 * To admire, one should learn the art. Miss Martineau 
 is cordially referred to, as an admirable example to follow 
 in disciplining oneself that way. Dr. Paley, Mr, Dick, 
 and the Messrs. Abbots, are tame authors, and by no means 
 worth the attention of those who love to exalt themselves 
 and refine the heart by easy contemplations. Miss Mar- 
 tineau has the true fire of genius, the poetry of conception. 
 Had she been a man instead of an old maid, there is no 
 calculating what her destiny would have been on her late 
 visit to this infantile coimtry. As it was, she was not in- 
 sensible to the flatteries of sjxophants in surplice, who 
 hoped for immortality in her diary. Her ingratitude to 
 that select few who bellowed into her capacious ears all 
 the slander of the continent, must feel happily recom- 
 pensed for the just tribute of respect expressed by her for 
 the government, institutions, manners and customs of the 
 United States.
 
 110 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS- 
 
 ous displays referred to by the literati, the globe 
 of Saturn would be wholly unfit for the residence 
 of organized beings. The transcendant heat 
 constantly radiated from those brilliant moons, 
 as they are universally though improperly called, 
 is sufficient to keep the solid earth warmed, and 
 maintain the vitality of animal and vegetable 
 life. It seems to be mainly by the absorption 
 of calorific rays that this beneficial life-preserving 
 ,efl:ect is produced. The sun has no agency 
 whatever in maintaining the requisite degree of 
 temperature, being at a distance altogether too 
 great to excercise even a remote influence. 
 Eclipses of the moons of Saturn, in the language 
 of the old philosophers, or rather as we are 
 taught by the present discoveries, involves 
 nothing that is mysterious in their phenomena; 
 indeed, to give credit where it is due, the books 
 of science are measurably correct in the declara- 
 tion that the rays from the sun are occasionally 
 interrupted in the course which they have a ten- 
 dency to run, by Saturn himself, and this gives 
 the appearance of an eclipse of one or more of 
 the fire-balls. 
 
 When it happens that any one of the seven 
 receives the direct, though necessarily feeble 
 light, from the centre of the solar system, the
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. Ill 
 
 appearance is vivid. Friction, or the resistance 
 of invisible matter in the regions through which 
 their several orbits pass, keeps up the maximum 
 heat, which is always the same. 
 
 This fluid or matter, whatever it may be, is 
 both elastic, invisible and impenetrable, contrib- 
 uting always the elements of fire. On the sur- 
 face of Saturn there are no stupendous moun- 
 tains, no deep ravines, as in the cheerless moon. 
 Nature in the fair climate of Saturn, assumes 
 her most captivating aspect, and, from all that 
 can be ascertained, it is altogether the happiest 
 residence in which mortals could be placed in 
 the nebulcB to which the seven worlds of the so- 
 lar system belongs. Nine great cities, magnifi- 
 cent beyond description, the quiet habitations of 
 intelligent beings, were all minutely examined 
 at one sitting, being within the circumference of 
 a circle embraced by the eye. They occupied an 
 apparent area of one hundred miles, guarded on 
 their suburban boundaries by tremendous great 
 hollow spheres, rolling with unearthly speed just 
 outside the gates, laden with Anacks. These 
 balls varied considerably in size, some being a 
 thousand feet in diameter, and others falling be- 
 low two hundred — bearing to each other the re- 
 lative proportions of large and small vessels, en- 
 tering in or sailing out of port.
 
 112 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 These curious vehicles rolled amazingly rapid- 
 ly, not only round individual cities, but also from 
 one to the other, with the facility of well-managed 
 coaches on a high way. It was obvious, by the 
 uniform movements of the larger class which 
 continually ran around the extreme boundaries 
 of a city, that they were some way connected 
 with a vigilant police regulation.* 
 
 In the axes of the balls, (for so I continue to 
 designate them, because I am an admirer of 
 simplicity of language in descriptive narrative,) 
 there are extremely large round openings, so 
 that, in passing, Mrs. Fox looked clear through 
 to the opposite circular window. Within, on a 
 level with the under side of the polar axis win- 
 dow, a sort of a flooring was rigged, suspended 
 
 * Rapid driving, in New York and Boston, indicates a 
 disposition to copy their neighbors inSalurn ; but it shows, 
 at the same time, a most miserable lack of energy in cer- 
 tain officers, who permit reckless Jehus to crack the bones 
 of women and children, every other day in the year, as 
 though they were offered in sacrifice to the tutelar deity of 
 the city. Of all municipal laws, let those which have been 
 enacted to preserve the citizens, be rigidly enforced. We 
 know not, having never inquired, but all those old-fash- 
 ioned wholesome restraints upon furious driving in our 
 thronged streets have been repealed, and the omnibusses, 
 are put in commission to cheapen provisions by killing off 
 the inhabitants.
 
 EXTPwAOKDlNARY SIGHTS. 113 
 
 by some inj^enious contrivance, so that it re- 
 inained still and level, notwithstanding the mo- 
 tion of the outside shell. Sliding doors were 
 opened and closed, just as the current of air and 
 other circumstances were agreeable or disagree- 
 able. There, with a delightful prospect before 
 them, groups of travellers were seen crowding 
 to the window to enjoy the beautiful scenery. 
 From the piles of bales, boxes, trunks, &c. ob- 
 served in the back ground, beyond the passen- 
 gers, it was evident they were strangers from a 
 distant province. 
 
 Mrs. Fox noticed that way-passengers were 
 continually alighting from the window, even 
 burdened by baggnge, without experiencing ap- 
 parent inconvenience, although the vehicle nev- 
 er stopped for any one to make an exit. What 
 amazed her very much, was the fact that no one 
 seemed to suffer the least inconvenience from 
 leaping, even from the highest balls, as with us 
 in stepping from a carriage, when under way. 
 A different kind of structure, therefore, a higher 
 degree of finish in the mechanical construction 
 of the locomotive apparatus, must be accorded 
 to the favored Saturnians. 
 
 Puzzling as it is to explain how or upon what 
 principle these hollow spheres are kept in motion, 
 10
 
 114 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 I shall hazard the opinion that the true perpet' 
 ual motion, so long sought for here, has there 
 been discovered, and applied to the propulsion 
 of engines. Outside they are uniformly smooth, 
 and nothing appears, not even a screw head, to 
 lead to a knowledge of the arrangementof wheels 
 or pinions within.* 
 
 No style or magnitude of architecture known 
 to the ancients, will compare with the lofty edi- 
 fices on the face of Saturn. Out of thousands 
 of private dwellings, not one single house, with 
 the exception of oui-houses, was less than a quar- 
 ter of a mile in height, all beautifully propor- 
 tioned, and the best class standing within eme- 
 
 * Mr, Fox suggested that the mysterious power so ad- 
 vantageously applied by the ingenious Saturnians, might 
 be eleciro-magnetism; nor can he be diverted from the 
 notion that Dr. Page and Mr. Davenport got their first 
 hint for constructing those queer models at the Mechanics' 
 Fair, by a stealthy peep at the manuscript of this book. 
 The doctor being a Salem man, born on the spot where 
 the witches were tried, it is possible, barely possible, that 
 he obtained his knowledge in that way. As for Mr. Da- 
 venport, he is exculpated from all participation in the 
 matter. His model is enough to convince the most stupid 
 men in the universe, (I mean the Joint Stock Company 
 engaged in building a mammoth Electro-Magnetic loco- 
 motive for the Haerlem Rail-road) it was never copied j 
 it is every inch his own invention.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 115 
 
 raid enclosures of surpassing richness. From 
 uhatever point they were viewed, even at differ- 
 ent liours, when tlie reflected light might be sup- 
 posed to modifv, tliey alwnys had a (hizzling 
 metallic lustre, not unhkc burnished gold when 
 held up to a blazing sun in a summer day. 
 
 They are without transparent windows or 
 hinged doors ; the necessity of the former was 
 never manifested by inclemency of the weather, 
 and with respect to the latter, a much prettier 
 plan is pursued there, of having them slide, like 
 those between communicating parlors. Chim- 
 neys were never observed, which led Mrs. Fox 
 to suspect that, like the Grahamites, the people 
 subsist wholly upon vegetable productions, un- 
 cooked.* Most of them have verandahs towards 
 
 * Never were simpletons more ungenerously and libel- 
 lously treated, than the persecuted Grahamites. Misrep- 
 resentation and glaring falsehoods have been in vogue 
 against them long enough. So far from living exclusive- 
 ly on vegetables, as wickedly promulgated, ihey are the 
 most ravenous meal-eaters on the globe, always excepting 
 
 , who requires a stream of Madeira at the expense 
 
 of the Corporation, to work away dull care. Why, that 
 persecuted saint,— that meek, that heavenly-minded suf- 
 ferer in the cause of long life, whose innate modesty so 
 seals his lips that " he never said a foolish word," the great 
 inventor of the humbug himself, always dines on roast 
 beef when out of the Avay of his silly, moonshine followers.
 
 116 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 the streets, arranged in terraces, one above the 
 other, to the highest story. This gives a fine 
 effect, and might be imitated here, particularly 
 when favored with a southern aspect, to good 
 advantage.* 
 
 In all great thoroughfares of the cities, the 
 broadways, the doors were open, and IMrs. Fox 
 made very exact sketches of what she saw. Of 
 this, however, the particulars will be given in 
 the second volume, which is appropriated to the 
 consideration of practical agriculture, ornament- 
 al gardening, and the predominant fashions of 
 dress and furniture, in vogue with the Satur- 
 nians. 
 
 As a general rule, in the exact centre of every 
 street, which were paved with blocks of wood, 
 like the specimen patch in New- York, on which 
 the mayor's children play, there is a raised plat- 
 form, resembling a bowling-alley, perhaps six 
 
 * Although the thought has been suggested, I have no 
 reason for beUeving that the galleried house between At- 
 kinson and Federal streets, in which the Berry Street Ran- 
 gers, a mighty band of ferocious fellows are supposed 
 to hold their midnight orgies, is an imitation of a Satur- 
 nian gentleman's house. The Berry Street architectural 
 wonders, reflecting odoriferous honor upon the name of 
 the contriver, is entirely original, and among the curiosi- 
 ties of Boston.
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 117 
 
 hundred feet in width, over which the locomo- 
 tive balls of the third order, such as are permit- 
 ted within the city, are forever rolling on in 
 monotonous grandeur. No other vehicles were 
 ever seen there by Mrs. Fox, although much 
 time was given to the investigation. 
 
 Neither external mechanical aid or living 
 power was any where applied on the outside, 
 which amounts to a confirmation of the opinion, 
 that the perpetual motion has certainly been 
 discovered there. All travelling in Saturn is 
 performed in this unique manner. 
 
 The streets were filled with multitudes, pass- 
 ing and repassing each other, as in our large 
 towns, — and the balls, teaming with those bent 
 on business, and those, for aught we know, on 
 fleeting pleasure, were shooting by each other 
 and through streets and lanes and the byways of 
 the country, as though conscious of their 
 strength. As far as any of the magnificent 
 avenues were examined, the balls were seen 
 going with difTerent velocities, till lost in the 
 maze of perspective. All communications be- 
 tween cities and distant provinces is probably 
 maintained through their agency. Were a 
 spectator raised in a balloon eight thousatid feet 
 directly over Boston, and in looking down should 
 10*
 
 118 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 discover spherical bodies, of twenty, thirty and 
 forty feet in diameter, rolling through the streets 
 by an invisible impulse, and should notice the 
 Salem turnpike, the road to Cambridge, and 
 other principal avenues leading to the town, 
 studded with those bodies, laden with passengers, 
 both entering and departing from the city, — he 
 would have something of a correct idea of the 
 mode of intercourse in the planet Saturn. 
 
 Men were infinitely numerous there, — in all 
 respects made as we are made, but magnificent- 
 ly developed : they all averaged twenty-five feet 
 in height. Nothing is more astonishing than 
 man, as he shows himself in Saturn ; — truly, he 
 looks like the lord of the soil. Clothing is not 
 required to any burdensome extent. The only 
 fabric worn, is a kind of sparkling armor, of 
 the richest workmanship. The legs, arms and 
 body were enclosed, apparently for eff'ect, not as 
 a necessary condition on account of the climate. 
 Great majesty is depicted in their countenances; 
 and the proportions of their limbs, the exact 
 symmetry of their figures, together with the grand 
 display of their comforts, industry, contentment 
 and happiness, raised the curiosity of Mrs. Fox 
 to the^iiighest degree of admiration. 
 
 Mrs. Fox became satisfactorily convinced
 
 EXTRAORDINARV: SIGHTS. 119 
 
 that this was the abode of a happy race, where 
 neither envy, guile, backbiting or slander had a 
 foothold. 
 
 The Saturnian cities are of prodigious mag- 
 nitude and surpassing magnificence, in every 
 respect. Philadelphia, with all its internal 
 excellencies, in comparison with one of those 
 in a distant world, is but a mere moat by the 
 side of a mountain. Streets do not intersect 
 each other at right angles, but describe con- 
 centric circles, — one within the other ; — hence 
 the exterior one of all is truly prodigiously long. 
 From the centres of the nine metropolitan cities, 
 particularly noticed, where stands the strangest 
 public buildings ever devised, narrow pathways 
 intersect the streets. 
 
 More than two hours were devoted to a sur- 
 vey of the exterior of the citadel, if such is its 
 purpose, in city a, so marked in the lithographic 
 plans of the natural and artificial divisions of 
 Saturn. In the first place, its magnitude is 
 terrific, being on the same grand architectural 
 scale which distinguishes even private houses of 
 the common citizens. It was computed to be, 
 from the threshold of the frontdoor, to the eves 
 — one half a mile. — Cupolas, spires, domes or 
 minarets are unknown, or, if they are, it is cer-
 
 120 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 tain they are not fashionable. Its grand figure 
 is something between an octagon, a circle, a 
 cube and a circle, — therefore difficult to explain.* 
 
 On the top of the walls, (for it is without a 
 roof, like the towers of gothic churches,) singular 
 animals are chained down by massive rings. 
 They conducted as though the point of am- 
 bition was to get at each other, but the chains 
 were too short to allow of contact. 
 
 Some of those mural ornaments, if such was 
 the purpose in confining them at that giddy 
 height, differed in every possible respect from 
 the inferior animals of the moon. Their bodies 
 
 * The South Cov^e Hotel, now building opposite the 
 Worcester rail-road depot, is more like that in the text, 
 that is, indescribable^ than any other in America. Wisely 
 the name of the architect has been kept out of sight, 
 having been forced by a pile, driven when the foundation 
 was laid, beyond the prying reach of vulgar posterity. 
 The rumor that the company by whom it is erected have 
 taken out a patent right, is firmly contradicted. Neither 
 is it believed that the company intend to be entombed in 
 the court which the hotel surrounds. No proposition of 
 the kind was ever brought forward to be sanctioned by 
 tlte hawk-eye committee, nor by Mr. ***** *j wJ^q concocts, 
 pro bono publico. When the street in front of the hotel 
 is made a trifle narrower, the beauty of this structure, 
 apparently'- a great gloomy rat-trap, even worse than the 
 new granite court-house, will be properly appreciated.
 
 EXTRAORDIxNARY SIGHTS. 121 
 
 were just three square, like a file, and apparent- 
 ly as hard, by reason of formidable black scales. 
 These triangular frames varied in length from 
 one to two hundred and thirty-seven feet in 
 length, terminated by a head at each extremity. 
 On the under side, the ridge of the back being 
 one angle, were hundreds of legs, after the man- 
 ner of centipedes, those in the middle being 
 much the longest, and each one expanded into a 
 broad palmated foot, analogous to a frog's. 
 
 As might be supposed, the centre of motion 
 was at the insertion of the central limbs. Bal- 
 anced on these, the body each way was occa- 
 sionally violently raised into the air, held down 
 at that point by the chain, while their awfully 
 constructed jaws gnashed together with horrific 
 force. Being without teeth, they had a compen- 
 satioij in the copious secretion of a bright yellow 
 venom, which was spirted from their yawning 
 mouths like lava from a volcano. 
 
 Another animal, belonging to a difterent 
 species, also triangular, and provided with two 
 heads, as was repeatedly noticed to be the 
 characteristic of all the Saturnian genera, had, 
 beside wings, one solitary leg, projecting from 
 the middle of its abdomen. It possessed the 
 elastic property of a spiral spring. Leaping as
 
 122 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 far as its ponderous cliain would permit, the 
 whole weight of the body fell on the end of this 
 iinib, which was thus forcibly compressed till the 
 superincumbent weii^ht nearly touched the wall, 
 when a reaction took place — the leg elongating 
 to its utmost extent, lifting the body vertically 
 as long as the elastic property was in exercise, 
 but just before being wholly expended, another 
 leap followed. Whether all this was the effect 
 of rage or an evidence of playfulness, could not 
 be determined. 
 
 Despairing of picturing by a written descrip- 
 tion their appearance, as described by Mrs. Fox, 
 I must forego any further account of these non- 
 descripts, because they differ so singularly from 
 those familiar to us in the confined limits of 
 civilization, that my veracity might be called m 
 question were further details given of ^ their 
 organization. 
 
 I am fully aware of the scepticism that will be 
 expressed by the best informed people in the com- 
 munity, with regard to these revelations. We 
 have become accustomed to a certain style of 
 animal mechanics, conducive to a certain circle 
 of motions, adapted to the physical well-being 
 of each species ; hence, to surprise the reader by 
 deviations from the familiar standard of construe-
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 123 
 
 tion, as he views each class, would only excite 
 suspicion that good faith and honesty had 
 nothing to do with this memoir. We are not 
 prepared, in fact, for these sudden surprisals; 
 the very nature therefore of Mrs. Fox's inquiries, 
 because they are altogether in advance of the 
 age, will be slow in carrying conviction to the 
 minds of those who never think for themselves. 
 As before remarked, the building being with- 
 out a covering, gave Mrs. Fox an opportunity 
 of looking directly from above into its numerous 
 apartments. In some of them were travel- 
 ling balls, laid up in ordinary ; in others, martial 
 tropliies, coats of mail, regal jewels, &lc. Al- 
 most an army of females were caged up in a 
 suit of delightful rooms. Adjoining them was 
 a royal saloon containing thirty-two acres on the 
 floor, profusely ornamented with glittering stars 
 fixed to the walls, sparkling and blazing like a 
 series of noon-day suns. All the ladies had 
 heavy diadems upon their heads. Fifty, of sur- 
 passing dignity, in addition to crowns, had 
 golden serpents suspended from their ears and 
 elbows. Bracelets of burnished gold also be- 
 decked their arms and ankles, and boquets of 
 flowers vying with the iridescent glories of the 
 rainbow, confined by diamond clasps, were seen
 
 124 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 
 
 upon their shoulders. Neither shoes or stock- 
 ings, or indeed any dress covered their feet, 
 unless a profusion of chased rings on all their 
 toes, comes under the denomination of hosiery. 
 
 About their persons a flowing drapery, care- 
 lessly drawn on, yet extremely elegant from the 
 negligence with which it was worn, constituted 
 their sole covering. Their arms were bare to 
 the shoulders, and so were the legs to the knees. 
 Some were dancing, some playing on musical 
 instruments, and many more engaged in games 
 of chance. It was deeply exciting to Mrs. Fox 
 to witness the feat of jumping the rope, one of 
 her school-girl pastimes, which seemed to be as 
 popular in Saturn as at a modern gymnasium. 
 No females on our globe bear the least sort of 
 proportion to them ; — not one of them being less 
 than twenty feet tall. 
 
 To clear the cord, one lady jumped so high 
 that Mrs. Fox feared all her bones would be 
 fractured on striking the floor. There is nothing, 
 however, very surprising in this stupendous ex- 
 ercise, with a rope equalling a moderate cable : 
 every thing is in that proportion in Saturn. 
 
 An instrument on which one of the inmates 
 of this gilded room played twice in one afternoon, 
 while Mrs. Fox was gazing in upon the coterie, 
 was fashioned somewhat like a taraborine, yet
 
 EXTRAORDINARY SIGHTS. 125 
 
 it was without a parchment head. Across the 
 hoop were stretclied a lot of stiff parallel, inelas- 
 tic bars, one inch in diameter, four inches apart, 
 or thereabout. On those were mptallic balls, 
 perforated through their centres, and strung on 
 the rods, so as to slide freely either way. 
 
 From some unaccountable circumstance which 
 Mrs. Fox would never reveal, I have totally failed 
 in every attempt to elicit any thing further on 
 this subject of Saturn. Abruptly, however, as 
 the developments have been brought to a close, 
 the candid inquirer after truth, the student of 
 nature and the philosopher, wmII appreciate the 
 value of these discoveries, and estimate the tran- 
 scendant advantages accruing to science from 
 the right application of Animal Magnetism in 
 the hands of the wise and learned. It is my 
 private opinion, that Mrs. Fox was shocked by 
 a very terrible discovery in one of the citadel 
 saloons, and rather than recall the subject, appa- 
 rently so dreadfully disagreeable, she chooses to 
 remain perfectly silent. The public may rest 
 assured that whenever she renews the narrative, 
 if not too voluminous for publication, the relation 
 shall appear at a future day.* 
 
 ♦ By consulting those excellent authorities, Col. Stone's 
 Letter, Durant's Memoir of Silk-Worms, Poyen's History 
 11
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 UNTHOUGHT OF MATTERS. 
 
 By an infinitude of trigonometrical calcula- 
 tions, Jupiter, the mammoth of the heavens, 
 reputed to be 89,170 English miles in diameter, 
 important errors have been detected, of conse- 
 quence to science. Now his distance from the 
 earth is also declared to be 490 millions of miles, 
 and has a revolution on his own axis, making a 
 day and a night, in precisely nine hours and fifty- 
 six minutes. These memoranda will prepare the 
 reader for duly estimating the value of the follow- 
 ing astounding discoveries. 
 
 of Animal Magnetism in New-England, and Professor 
 Wayland on the Moral Laws of Accmnulation, some in- 
 sight may be gained into the cause of the freaks and fan- 
 tasies of somnambulists. Very satisfactory reasonings 
 mighi be collected from the pages of the Family Magazine 
 for a thousand strange matters. The Massachusetts R— 
 is another, and the Annuals of Education is another, 
 and the publications of all candid abolitionists.
 
 UNTHOUGHT OF MATTERS. 127 
 
 To Animal Magnetism, the noblest and last 
 discovered of the liberal sciences, is intellectual 
 man indebted for all that he knows with certain- 
 ty of other worlds. Without the provision of a 
 somnambule, to this hour, doubt and obscurity- 
 would have enveloped the mechanism of the solar 
 system. Notwithstanding the learned research- 
 es of La Place, that which has called forth the 
 wonder and admiration of unnumbered genera- 
 tions, from the creation of Adam, the structure, 
 order and internal condition of the planetary 
 system, is now brought down into particulars, and 
 is destined to become an ordinary parlor topic, 
 divested of all the romance and false coloring 
 which ignorance invariably attaches to what is 
 not comprehended. 
 
 How singular and thrilling must have been 
 the inward sensations of that favored of the hu- 
 man race, Mrs. Fox, in reaUzing the fact that of 
 all nations and tongues under heaven, she alone 
 is the only individual who has been indulged 
 with the solitary, yet ennobling satisfaction of 
 looking through all space, wherever the will was 
 directed, and yet lives to be conscious of it all ; 
 to relate minutia3, and to be grateful for the high 
 distinction of being the chosen vessel for pronml- 
 gating these revelations, which have been made
 
 128 UNTHOUGHT OF MATTERS. 
 
 to her ecstatic vision. She would be wanting in 
 honest .pride, were she insensible of the glory 
 that will henceforward be attached to her name 
 in all future annals, in being the humble instru- 
 ment of instructing mankind in the sublime study 
 of the universe. Nor does the weight of respon- 
 sibility in permitting me to record these incalcu- 
 lably important discoveries, operate otherwise 
 than to humble her to the dust in view of all that 
 she has seen. 
 
 Jupiter is an unfinished planet ; it is at this 
 moment in a process of evolution, to become ul- 
 timately the fit .residence of animated beings, 
 none having yet been developed there. With 
 the same scrupulous exactness of observation 
 which has characterized all Mrs. Fox's observa- 
 tions, she conceives that the nucleus of Jupiter 
 is one tremendous central fire, enveloped by a 
 sphere of water, two thousand, three hundred 
 and eleven miles in thickness. Volcanic erup- 
 tions are frequently taking place and bursting 
 through a dense crust intervening between the 
 molten mass within, and the water without. 
 This crust she determined, by a regularly devised 
 scale of admeasurement, to be one thousand, 
 nine hundred and two feet in thickness. She 
 witnessed repeated outbreakings through this
 
 UNTHOUGHT OF MATTERS. 129 
 
 shell, as though a mighty, resistless internal force 
 hove onward till it burst through, and the rent 
 edges being raised above the water, there re- 
 mained like the ragged edges of a crater, high 
 and dry above the roaring ocean. From the 
 open mouth thus formed, flame, smoke, ignited 
 rocks, themselves mighty and terrific in dimen- 
 sions, were whirled above the surging billows, 
 and when they fell, the waters hissed and boiled 
 and foamed in awful violence. Ejected lavas 
 have accumulated in spots and adhered to the 
 steep sides of these nucleii of burning mountains, 
 increasing the lateral diameter and strengthening 
 the walls of the volcanic tube leading into the 
 profound abyss below, till the elements of con- 
 tinents begin to show themselves. She doubts 
 not that these disruptions have been gradually 
 going on under the sure influence of certain 
 physical laws, perhaps for millions of years, and 
 millions more may be required to separate the 
 water into distinct seas. On a central fire, then, 
 does the whole chain of physical revolutions de- 
 pend for raising Jupiter to the condition of other 
 sections of the solar system. These grand dis- 
 plays have for their object to prepare it for the 
 occupancy of organized beings, destined in the 
 great plan of creative wisdom, to roam over its 
 11*
 
 130 UNTHOUGHT OF MATTERS. 
 
 widely extended surface and bask in its future 
 sunshine of blissful prosperity. 
 
 Those meridian belts on its outer surface, by 
 which it is designated from the fixed stars, are 
 the incipient foundations of mountain ranges, 
 which will ultimately become much more strong- 
 ly marked, and therefore be classed among the 
 most striking points of reference in astronomical 
 calculations. 
 
 When I assert that animals have not yet been 
 created in Jupiter, I speak expressly of air- 
 breathing animals, the latest always in the order 
 of equivocal generation : in the encircling ocean 
 there, monsters were noticed by Mrs. Fox, of 
 gigantic proportions and unique construction. 
 They unquestionably hold the same relationship 
 to the changing planet that the extinct sauri' 
 ans did, that once held the entire control over 
 our earth, before the higher and more compli- 
 cated orders came into existence. If it is ques- 
 tioned, what I now assert, that ages and ages of 
 an indefinite duration, before man, aquatic mon- 
 sters held possession of this earth, I beseech 
 those who would throw obstacles in the way, or 
 obscure the path of the geologist, to remember 
 that the skeletons of those antideluvians, those 
 original proprietors of this fair globe, are in
 
 UNTHOUGHT OF MATTERS. 131 
 
 every museum of distinction in Europe and 
 America. 
 
 These gigantic lizards were from fifty to one 
 hundred feet in length ; the phsiosaurus and 
 many others, now denominated fossil remains, 
 tell their own story. They once lived, but when, 
 no science can determine. Their speci-es too 
 was propagated — for more than one specimen 
 has been recovered. As they are detected in 
 every climate and in all regions, throughout the 
 continents and islands, it proves how universally 
 they were dispersed over the whole. 
 
 We have a fair and unquestionable history of 
 six thousands years, the Mosaic chronology — a 
 period in which man has exercised his high 
 prerogative of being the lord of creation ; yet in 
 all that time, no animal bearing the least resem- 
 blance to the frames of these excavated remains, 
 has any where been discovered ; their utter ex- 
 tinction, therefore, is firmly established. Once 
 they lived — but in what age 1 They were all 
 blotted from existence, but who can decide the 
 epoch ?
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 
 
 From immemorial time, [men of all ages and 
 in all countries where the human intellect has de- 
 veloped its energies,] — speculations have been 
 advanced on the probable construction and real 
 office of the sun, on that splendid system of 
 worlds by which it is surrounded, without gain- 
 inor that certain knowledore which can alone be 
 satisfactory. It shines as it did on the eventful 
 morning of its creation, six thousand years ago, 
 and yet philosophers know no more about its 
 organization than when Joshua commanded it to 
 stand still. 
 
 True, his diameter in geographical miles has 
 been determined to be 883,000, and that twenty- 
 five days, fourteen hours and eight minutes are 
 occupied in turning once round on his axis ; but 
 what is there in all this that is at all remarkable ?
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 133 
 
 We are a people delighting in particulars ; we 
 cannot rest with an imperfect disclosure, or 
 tolerate a half-told tale. Being myself under the 
 urging influence of this national trait, I be- 
 sought Mrs. Fox to lend her aid once more, to 
 clear up a mystery in the heavens, and it affords 
 me unfeigned pleasure to declare, that in every 
 instance, though often fatigued and prostrated 
 through the shocks which her extreme sensibili- 
 ty received by the clear views she had of unsus- 
 pected sights, in this and other worlds, she 
 seemed always in readiness to make her trans- 
 cendant gift of clairvoyancy subservient to the 
 highest purposes of cultivated science. 
 
 At the conclusion of so many experiments, it 
 required considerable preparation to reconnoitre 
 the central point from whence a series of worlds 
 got their impetus, and whose momentum is regu- 
 lated by its own undivulged agency. When 
 suitable arrangements had been completed, I 
 sat by the side of Mrs. Fox, with a resolution of 
 recording whatever she might reveal, being 
 assured, from constant watchfulness over her, 
 that imagination never swayed her judgment, 
 nor had she any motive for making false repre- 
 sentations. Implicit confidence may be placed 
 in every assertion emanating from her, and I
 
 134 
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 
 
 hold myself responsible to the world at large for 
 the fidelity with which this record of her great 
 discoveries has been executed. 
 
 On arriving in spirit * within nine hundred 
 and seventy-five miles of the main body of the 
 great Sol himself, so judged for reasons Mrs. 
 Fox did not at the moment stop to explain, she 
 found it nearly impossible to breathe. After re- 
 peated attempts to pass through an invisible 
 medium conjectured to be the atmosphere of 
 the sun, her lungs were clogged and choked 
 so badly, that she was heartily rejoiced to wend 
 her way back again with all convenient despatch. 
 We talked over this unlooked-for hindrance, nor 
 did we, or those with whom we conversed, com- 
 prehend how that the functions of the body 
 should be operated upon by the chemical com- 
 position of the atmosphere of a distant globe, in 
 the absence of the soul. 
 
 Now, I lay it down as a fundamental position, 
 that the spiritual part of our being, the rational, 
 
 * I am continually falling into the expressions of the 
 Providence people, who always speak of their travelling 
 somnambulists as having departed in spirit — the body 
 being dead to sensations till its return. Now, Mrs. Fox 
 was frequently in doubt whether her power of vision ex- 
 tended to all distances, or whether her soul was verily 
 moving by an act of volition.
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 135 
 
 thinking, incorporeal soul, always leaves the 
 body in these clairvoyant expeditions, and yet 
 Mrs. Fox maintains the contrary opinion, by 
 assuring me that the rays of light from luminous 
 objects, however distant, traverse to the eye ; 
 so that it is merely an elongation of the axis of 
 vision, and not, as I suppose, a migration of the 
 soul. But, waving all theories, it is sufficient to 
 assure the reader that no less than three several 
 trials were made before she passed through the 
 non-breathing space, and reached the solid 
 substance of the fountain of light.* 
 
 At my suggestion, she suspended herself mid- 
 air, and allowed the sun to roll over on his 
 diurnal route, that she might the more advanta- 
 geously inspect the surface as it passed onward 
 
 * A wonderful coiacideuce this, — with l\Iiss Brackett's 
 account of her voyage to the moon. The difficulty of in- 
 flating the lungs came very near driving her to the city 
 of Providence, although ample preparations had been 
 made for a grand journal. Like Mrs. Fox, she ultimately 
 succeeded, and the particulars have been often related by 
 herself to those stupid asses who could afford leisure to 
 hear the recital. But this was nothing to being sea-sick 
 on a voyage to Charleston, South Carolina. Certificates 
 to prove that she actually vomited on the parlor carpet, 
 may be seen in the next edition of Col. Stones history of 
 Animal Magnetism.
 
 136 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 
 
 under her feet. Still, she averred that she had 
 not left Boston, but was in persona?, in her own 
 quiet parlor. Here the regular investigation 
 commenced. 
 
 The sun, — the ever-shining sun, the life- 
 giving, invigorating luminary of a beautiful 
 combination of inhabited and partially develop- 
 ed spheres, is made up, apparently, of concentric 
 lumina of transparent matter, like the crystalline 
 lens of the eye. These coats are nine thousand 
 miles in thickness, the innermost one embracing 
 a ball of luminous substance intensely dazzling, 
 defying all description, and equalling in bulk four 
 globes the size of our earth. Each one of these 
 strata possesses a highly reflecting as well as 
 refracting property. Outside, or rather on the 
 sun's surface, there is a deep rich soil, as fine as 
 levigated gold dust, or rather an impalpable 
 powder, having a specific gravity of inconceiva- 
 ble weight. It is so very solid that the smallest 
 particle which could possibly be collected on the 
 extreme point of a fine needle, would weigh 
 about four tons. Thus, though perfectly adust, 
 the admirable contrivance of its having great 
 ponderosity, always keeps the soil from being 
 blown away, a circumstance of immense im- 
 portance to the Solarians, should it by accident
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 137 
 
 ever occur. Now this impalpable soil is equally 
 as transparent as the main body of the planet. 
 How splendidly glorious is all this! Matchless, 
 aye, overwhelming are these magnificent dis- 
 plays in the far-spread universe. 
 
 But with this unique provision for reflecting 
 and refracting light, the sun does not originate 
 a single ray. Light is the offspring of infinite 
 Power, whose presence cannot be witnessed by 
 man, and live ; — whose laboratory is in the 
 secret labyrinths of a changeless eternity; — but 
 we are permitted to philosophize on the eflfects, 
 nay, causes and effects, without knowing 
 whether we are right or wrong in those abstract 
 investigations, which are of no utility, even were 
 they made plain to a child. 
 
 *' How glorious is the sun," might all its 
 trillion of happy intelligences sing in elevated 
 chorus'! Surely, it is the Eldorado of the poet's 
 imagination. It is the region where the soul of 
 him who was designed to inhabit it, pours out 
 the full splendor of its innate power. 
 
 But I will restrain myself from farther ex- 
 pressions of delight in Mrs. Fox's glowing ac- 
 count of the blissfiil surface of the sun, to detail 
 the circumstances connected with its illumina- 
 ting properties. 
 12
 
 138 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 
 
 At an indeterminate distance from the body 
 of tiie sun, far beyond the non-breathing space, 
 there is a sphere of luminous vapor, something 
 like a fog in a bright sunshine. Thus the sun 
 itself is balanced in the centre of a hollow 
 ball of phosphorescent haze. What this is we 
 never can know, for we have no means of con- 
 ducting a chemical analysis. This is light itself, 
 concentrated ; and to make that quantity which 
 will enable our imperfect optics to perceive, it 
 must be variously diluted by passing through 
 millions of miles, through variously composed 
 atmospheres, and lastly become altered by the 
 finely organized retina with which a benevolent 
 Creator has condescended to bless us. 
 
 The action of the nucleus of the sun, on this 
 distant cloud of light, is among the most extraor- 
 dinary phenomena in the whole range of nature. 
 A sort of boiling commotion takes place at some 
 point of this condensed light, which keeps in- 
 creasing till it bursts with the fury of an ocean 
 wave against an iron-bound coast, dashing and 
 rending the whole mass for millions of miles in 
 extent, in the twinkling of an eye, accompanied, 
 it is presumable, by awful detonations, heavier 
 than any artillery in the earth's aerial domains. 
 Then another disruption will follow in quick
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 139 
 
 succession, and another, and another ; — some 
 of these rents exceeded four hundred millions of 
 miles in length by one hundred thousand in 
 breadth. The vacuum thus instantly formed by 
 the convulsive action, leaves a long black cavity, 
 which, seen from this earth, is called a black spot 
 on the sun. When there is an universal activity 
 going on in the way of disruption, a chain or a 
 series of black belts seem to pass over the sun's 
 face, obscuring his fructifying influence, felt 
 here in the unproductiveness of the season, and 
 in the cold, hazy atmosphere, which apparently 
 chills the air, and stints vegetation as it rises 
 from the mother earth. 
 
 Whatever the composition of the sphere of 
 light may be, I know not; but after its chaotic 
 atoms have been acted upon by the central 
 diamond of the sun, rays shoot out from the mass, 
 and in the process of adjustment from confusion 
 to order, the rupture takes place and a percepti- 
 ble light is evolved, such as illuminates an object 
 to be recognised by the eye. When light, there- 
 fore, once assumes the form of pencils of rays, 
 the highly reflecting property of the whole body 
 of the sun throws it with an impelling force 
 that drives it through an indefinite distance ; — 
 perhaps they would move in a right line forever
 
 140 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 
 
 and ever, were they not at any time intercepted 
 by the interposition of opaque bodies floatin<^ 
 through the dark empire of eternity. This suf- 
 ficiently explains the whole matter of the origin 
 of light. I now intend to confine myself to Mrs. 
 Fox's lucid description of the sun as a habitable 
 residence. 
 
 It has before been remarked that the soil was 
 as perfectly transparent as the interior of its body, 
 out of which grows spontaneously every variety 
 of elegant tree and flower the most active imagin- 
 ation can conceive of, spreading, it is presumed, 
 a fragrance as exhilerating and delightful through 
 the air, as the olfactory organs of the inhabitants 
 can bear. Fruits of all hues, from the golden 
 yellowness of the orange, to the purple, scarlet 
 and red, the violet and purple, hang in luxuriant 
 profusion from every twig and bough ; a new crop 
 springing into maturity the instant a stem is 
 disencumbered of its weight. All that could in- 
 vite the appetite or satisfy the cravings of a 
 gourmand, of a vegetable nature, are crowding 
 into view wherever the observer turns. 
 
 A plant apparently peculiar to the sun, as it 
 was no where seen in the other planets, yielded 
 an immense crop of small quadrupeds, resembling 
 pigs, which no sooner reached the full period of
 
 J:'//,, 
 
 7eqe/'a6le /i\/s. 
 
 1
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 141 
 
 maturity, roasted on the stem, — and if not pluck- 
 ed, fell to the ground in the course of ei^ht 
 hours, and were succeeded by another set, which 
 passed through the same singular changes. Mrs. 
 Fox occasionally saw parties dining in groves, 
 whose table was supplied directly from the tree 
 with this animo-vegetable diet. These vegeta- 
 ble pigs were never taken before ripe ; those in 
 the growing state seemed lively, tied as they 
 ■were at the extremity of a twig, a hundred feet 
 high, working their little feet and sweeping in- 
 sects with their slender whip-lash tails in frolic- 
 some playfulness. 
 
 Another tall, bushy tree, not unlike an oak, 
 bore the true Turkey sheep, — but they were 
 necessarily dressed for the table, though no kind 
 of cooking was required. It appeared that by 
 taking off the hide, the action of the common 
 air imparted to the meat the sapid quality re- 
 quired, to be relished. Poultry, much larger 
 than any species sold in our markets, together 
 with ducks, snipes, woodcocks, pigeons, &lc. 
 are all produced on trees, and drop off, the mo- 
 ment they are eatable. Thus I might particu- 
 larize an infinitude of delicacies, of an animal 
 character, produced in this extraordinary man- 
 ner, showing, incontestibly that they were ex- 
 12*
 
 142 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 
 
 pressly designed for the sustenance of solarian 
 man. 
 
 With the exception of these vegeto-animated 
 productions, no animals e;sist in the sun. In- 
 telligent beings, and those of surpassing come- 
 liness, are the exclusive possessorsof that divine 
 region. The population is prodigiously numer- 
 ous, leading Mrs. Fox to the opinion that death 
 has no victims there. This probably arose from 
 the consideration of the magnitude of the Sun, 
 and the ample provision made for sustaining 
 multitudes upon multitudes, beyond all human 
 computation. 
 
 Neither dwellings or temples marred the res- 
 plendent beauty of this angelic residence of pu- 
 rified man. Nothing but the clear sky above 
 canopies the dwellers of that unsurpassed world, 
 who offer up their regular adorations at specific 
 periods, on magnificent altars fabricated out of 
 precious stones. Some of those are equal to the 
 Egyptian pyramids in perpendicular altitude, 
 though far exceeding them at the base. They 
 present much the same appearance that the 
 White Mountains would, were the principal ele- 
 vations hewn into gigantic cones ; the sides are 
 so gradually inclined that people could ascend 
 and descend with perfect ease.
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 1 43 
 
 Around and on the angles of those resplendent 
 points of worship, millions were often seen kneel- 
 ing ; all facing the apex, on which stood the sup- 
 posed pontifexmaxiraus, with his extended hands 
 raised in the attitude of blessing the immense 
 assembly below. No symptom of idolatry was 
 detected, if the expression of the face, the up- 
 raised eye, the spontaneous genuflexions of the 
 whole group at once, did not betray it. No 
 works of art were presented on any part of the 
 grand empire of the Sun, with the exception of 
 these ihimitable altars, which, after all, may 
 have been provided in the beginning of time, by 
 the same hand which fashioned all things. 
 
 Neither clouds, rain, hail, snow nor sleet is 
 shown in the sun ; even dews are not required 
 to nourish the plants, for they draw from the clear 
 fountain in which they keep root, all the ele- 
 ments of their natures without sunshine or moon- 
 light : independently of all those ordinary sources 
 of vitality, a mild light, emanating from no recog- 
 nized point, is universally diffused, nor does it 
 ever vary in strength or intensity ; it is forever the 
 same. The day is as eternal as all the other phys- 
 ical properties of the sun ; for no night spreads a 
 sombre darkness over the gilded landscape. Both 
 the temperature of the climate and the loveliness
 
 144 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 
 
 of nature in all her millions of multiplied forms, 
 contributes to make man there, what he should 
 be here — pi^re in heart, and elevated in character. 
 One government stretches its jurisdiction over 
 the entire sun ; and by analogy, therefore, it is 
 reasonable to suppose that one language is uni- 
 versally spoken. Monarchy has no foothold in 
 that great central world ; a democracy therefore 
 is the probable form. But the charm of the sys- 
 tem arises from an exhibition of the fact, that 
 one person is precisely as good as another, and 
 to all intents and purposes just as capable of 
 wielding the government as another. All are on 
 the footing of equality ; every individual knows 
 his duty and is disposed to do it, by conforming 
 to the requisitions of society, the civil and the 
 moral law. Nor has one person a higher intel- 
 lectual development than another. One is a 
 complete pattern-card of the whole. Peace, good 
 will, honesty, sobriety, and ardent, elevated af- 
 fections characterize the Solarians, from one 
 grand division of its geographical limits to anoth- 
 er, however remote. There are no sterile re- 
 gions, no waste ground; neither is there an im- 
 perfect or an imbecile intellect to be found. In 
 a word, the whole condition of the mind, as there 
 exhibited, shows its preparation for heaven. As
 
 A JAUNT TO THE SUN. 145 
 
 far as Mrs. Fox could discover, she forms the 
 idea tliat the sun is in the order of heavenly res- 
 idences, where the soul is refined, and the gross- 
 ness of our nature so painfully shown on earth, 
 has no sustenance there.* 
 
 * Because there is a plenty of spare room on this page^ 
 the author had a great mind to introduce a magnificent 
 marginal note, by way of economising space. This sort of 
 management shows tact in the writer, and a strict regard 
 to the prevailing, canting, whining hypocrisy of the day, 
 that 
 
 "A stitch in time, 
 Saves nine." 
 
 In other words, were it expressly declared in this place, 
 that I entertain a most sovereign contempt for those little 
 men in great shoes, who are constantly endeavoring to 
 impress the world, that is the gaping admirers of goslin 
 genius, that they have nothing but the present and ever- 
 lasting good of their fellow mortals at heart, it would be 
 understood why I have made use of expressions apparent- 
 ly wanting in reverence. The shameful license of dema- 
 gogues, pedagogues and world-loving priests, who cloak 
 their hypocritical ambition under the solemnities of devo- 
 tional language, as, — " If Heaven wills " — " Providence 
 permitting " — " The good of your soul " — " Charity ; dear 
 charity " — " There is nothing abiding here hut my principles 
 (f'C." is now common over the whole country, and by cop- 
 ying this perverse style, sinful as it is inappropriate, on 
 trifling occasions, only shows that the vulgarity of the age, 
 like India Rubber Stock, has been widely diffused.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LOCAL LEARNING. 
 
 The author about ready to return to his home in the 
 country. — His law-suit brought to a close. — Mrs. Fox grat- 
 ifies him with an evening promenade. — She attends a lec- 
 ture at Amory Hall. — Sees nobody there but lank, toothless, 
 husband-hunting old maids. — Sees a loaf of Graham bread 
 for the first time. — By request, goes to a Free Inquiry 
 Meeting in Summer Street. — Saw a man personifying the 
 devil. — Felt a desire to take all the children found there, 
 home, where they would have better examples. — Mrs. Fox 
 makes judicious and sensible remarks on Sin. — Speaks 
 decidedly well about snatching something. — Steps into the 
 State Street Banks. — Sees a plenty of money there. — Says 
 much to restore public confidence in the soundness of those 
 institutions. — Intimates that the Directors, generally, are 
 in hot water. — An uncomfortable condition. — Bad enough 
 to be in cold. — Visits the Legislature.— Speaks of a for- 
 mer trip to Albany. — Criticisms on New York brokers. — 
 Visit to Dr. Williams, the celebrated foreign occulist. — 
 The author stops short for want of paper, but very hand- 
 somely invites the reader to look into a forth-coming vol- 
 ume. 
 
 The law business upon which I had been long 
 detained in Boston, having been brought to a
 
 LOCAL LEARNING. 147 
 
 close, JNIrs. Fox, although actually weary of 
 sight-seeing, begged that her clairvoyance might 
 be put in requisition again, if it could afford me 
 any further gratification, before leaving the city. 
 Considering that this, perhaps, might be the last 
 opportunity in the course of my professional life, 
 for experimenting in Animal Magnetism, her 
 indulgence was acknowledged, and after the 
 usual manipulations, a la Bracket, in presence 
 of JMr. Fox, his daughters, a reverend gentle- 
 man from Pawtuxet, and a medical man who is 
 distinguishing himself at Nashua for his success 
 in putting factory girls to sleep in their looms, — 
 a new order of inquiries were instituted. 
 
 When fairly magnetized, I put myself in mag- 
 netic communication with her ; — " And low 
 Madam, we will wander over the city this even 
 ing and ascertain what so many assemblies are 
 about in the principal Halls ; for I noticed on the 
 way to Chesnut Street, that the sidewalks were 
 thronged with people, who were branching off 
 towards Amory Hall, the xVrtist's Gallery, and 
 a famous banking institution in State Street." 
 
 Our first call was at Amory Hall, a beautiful 
 apartment in the occupancy of various associa- 
 tions. I suppose it is hardly necessary to ap- 
 prise the reader again, that neither of us left
 
 148 LOCAL LEARNING. 
 
 Mrs. Fox's parlor, although her feet were in 
 motion, as though we were actually promenad- 
 intr. Doors sometimes are douhtless in a similar 
 somnambulic condition, as they pant, paw and 
 bark in their sleep precisely as they do in the 
 chase. 
 
 When Mrs. Fox arrived at the east end of 
 West Street, she hesitated a moment, looked up, 
 as though searching for a sign, and after a little 
 reflection, said " There must be great doings 
 overhead." " Well, madam," said the Nashua 
 doctor, " here is a bill on the Commonwealth 
 Bank, for paying the entrance fee." Fortunate- 
 ly, not being in communication with her, she 
 did not hear what he said, and of this I was 
 particularly glad, knowing how much she would 
 have considered herself insulted. Only the day 
 before, in a shopping excursion, she vainly at- 
 tempted to purchase a spool of thread the whole 
 length of Washington Street, as no one would 
 take a single bill in her wallet, which happened 
 to be of the Commonwealth, American, Kiiby, 
 Fulton, Franklin, Hancock and some other 
 equally abused Banks.* 
 
 * It was the President of a Boston Bank, in the year of 
 our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight, an 
 era in history, considering the literary character of the
 
 LOCAL LEARNING 149 
 
 She expressed her surprise at the crowd of fe- 
 males who were urj^ing their way up stairs ; " ten 
 women to one man." Pretty soon, Mrs. Fox 
 considered herself comfortably seated on a settee 
 exactly before a short, square-built man, who had 
 possession of the desk, who raved like one pos- 
 sessed of seven evil spirits. She was at first 
 alarmed ; but, on looking about the room, she saw 
 such a multitude of her own sex, that her fears 
 subsided, being certain that if they could remain 
 with an unchained maniac, with impunity, she 
 certainly could — invisible to all but herself. 
 
 Mrs. Fox watched the ranting speaker with 
 marked attention, to discover, by his wild contor- 
 tions, if possible, what his object was ; for artic- 
 ulative language, however boisterous, gave [no 
 sound to her quiescent ears, unless she was put 
 in magnetic communication. t 
 
 age, who ornamented liis hou.se with a Portorico, in front, 
 and a Pizarro in the rear. For further particulars, how 
 he could read,— how lie could write, and how he was 
 made a fool of by unprincipled scoundrel?, for which, 
 however, he was not morally guilty, cons alt the legislative 
 committee on Banks. So much for the literary emporium 
 in 1838 ! 
 
 t Only a very few, even when put in magnetic com- 
 munication, seem to understand the advantages accruing 
 13
 
 150 LOCAL LEARNING. 
 
 After watching the violent, shoulder-dislo- 
 cating, sesawings of the person whom she verily 
 began to imagine had just escaped from a mad- 
 house, and wondering who he could be, and 
 what he was saying to keep so many lank, pale- 
 faced, toothless old maids fast in the seats three 
 hours at a sitting, with an air of exultation, his 
 light grey eyes protruding like sprouts on a 
 chenango potato, the centre of attraction, the 
 man in the pulpit finally held up a loaf of bread, 
 which was whirled over and over, that all its 
 surfaces might be seen, with as much activity as 
 a juggler would play with a tumerous ball. With 
 a fixed look of earnestness, a terribleness which 
 nothing but a portrait of his own face can express, 
 the broad top of the loaf was turned to the audi- 
 ence, with an assurance of manner which seemed 
 to say, " Here is the staff of life ; here is longevi- 
 ty ; here are concentrated the laws of vitality ; 
 here is anti-indigestion ; anti-all things ; the el- 
 ements of famine in the shape of a loaf," and 
 
 from it. Perhaps the scientific corps of the explorlDg ex- 
 pedition might throw some light on this subject, having 
 been frequently magnetized by the Secretary of the Navy. 
 It is now generally admitted that Governor Dickinson is 
 an old woman in disguise, possessing the electrical proper- 
 ties of the gymnotiTS family of eels. In the spring he will 
 have liberty to resume the petticoat again, in New- Jersey.
 
 "^Jaence ot ^ Life
 
 LOCAL LEARNING. 151 
 
 she read the stamped letters on the branny up- 
 per crust, as the clear gas-light fell npon it, 
 " Graham. — Admittance four-pence ! " 
 
 Mrs. Fox, on retiring from the hall, expressed 
 her pointed disgust at the exhibition. She did 
 not recognize a ladi/ in the group. Being near 
 Summer Street, I besought her to step into a 
 Gallery close by. She had no sooner entered 
 than she recoiled at the sight of those whom she 
 saw there. Old men, whose white hairs were 
 the evidence of their proximity to the grave; 
 women, who might be respectable, if they would 
 flee from the pollution that is tainting them in 
 the society of God-defying sinners, who go there 
 to devise new modes of sowing the fruitful seeds 
 of moral and physical corruption ; and little chil- 
 dren, training up for refined misery here, and, 
 Mrs. Fox fears, for eternity, were gathered round 
 a large, frosty-headed individual in a blue cloak, 
 who presented to his deluded followers a some- 
 what favorable specimen of human physiognomy; 
 but alas! this wretched imbecile looked but on 
 a mask, which concealed from all eyes except 
 those of Mrs. Fox, the hideous visage of the 
 prince of darkness. Behind him, against the 
 wall hung several portraits of his infernal majes- 
 ty's ministers, disguised, however, by being la-
 
 152 LOCAL LEARNING. 
 
 belled on the forehead " Reason, Genius of Phi- 
 losophy ^ Thomas Paine, Frances Wright Du- 
 rismont Sf Co. This assembly were making 
 preparations to celebrate the birth-day of that 
 vile debauchee, that infamous wretch, that libel 
 on virtue, Paine. Mrs. Fox repented of ever 
 having seen the congregation of corruptionists, 
 whose daily existence is prolonged through the 
 sparing mercies of that benevolent, happiness- 
 dispensing God, whom they meet together to 
 curse. " But, O ! the dreadful termination of 
 such a life of imprecation," said Mrs. Fox. " I 
 felt as though I could not refrain from snatching 
 those innocent children, let into that rented hell 
 for gradual initiation into vice, as I would have 
 saved a casket of precious jewels from a burning." 
 
 These were the last words of Mrs. Fox con- 
 cerning Free Inquirers. 
 
 The evening was advancing, and instead of be- 
 ing requested to return to either place in which 
 she had been making clairvoyant investigations, 
 we unanimously besought her to visit the cash- 
 ier's room of certain banking offices in State 
 Street. She was interested in several of them, 
 as an owner of stock, and the condition of their 
 vaults was worth attending to. 
 
 More than two hours sped their way over the
 
 
 Fj-ee A/ic/iurv
 
 LOCAL LEARNING. 
 
 153 
 
 clock-dial before Mrs. Fox would answer a ques- 
 tion. Her heart beat prodigiously fast, and the 
 perspiration trickled down her fair forehead copi- 
 ously. "Well, husband," said she, " I am per- 
 fectly satisfied of the soundness of our Boston 
 Banks. Why they have double the specie in 
 the yaults that it is supposed they possess ; the 
 adroit managers of these important institutions 
 are laying a deep and firm foundation for a 
 banking stability, that can never be affected 
 again by any concurrence of adverse circum- 
 stances, let the General Government exert itself 
 as it may to crush our merchants. But I must 
 confess that I was surprised at the vast amount 
 of notes on hand which cannot be paid. Some 
 of the directors are the debtors too ; and I saw 
 them casting interest upon paper, the principal of 
 which they never calculate to liquidate. There 
 will be sad overturning in property the present 
 year. Many who keep their coaches will keep 
 them at the expense of the widow and the or- 
 phan's tears ; but their notes will never be paid — 
 not because they are unable to do it, but because 
 it is a species of fraud that society winks at, but 
 dares not punish." 
 
 On the following morning, before the mag- 
 nectic fluid infused into her system the prece-
 
 154 LOCAL LERANING. 
 
 ding evening, became wholly inoperative, she 
 strolled in spirit into the house of representatives, 
 where there was the external promise, apparent- 
 ly, of rational entertainment. To her amaze- 
 ment, however, a very few only, of the hundreds 
 who were seated on the comfortable green cush- 
 ions provided by the sergeant at arms, seemed 
 to be impressed with the responsibilities devolv- 
 ing upon them in their legislative capacity. 
 More than two thirds of the members were read- 
 ing newspapers, pamphlets or letters, seemingly 
 regardless of the character of the business before 
 them. A portion of the remainder were con- 
 stantly lounging from one place to another, to 
 the annoyance, in most instances, of those upon 
 whom they called ;— and the last half of the un- 
 appropriated third, were constantly on the qui 
 Vive to get a chance to rise and say " Mr. 
 Speaker," — which is about all that one half of 
 the speeches amount to in the course of a ses- 
 sion. 
 
 While watching the modus operandi of par- 
 limentary proceedings, which were singularly 
 new to her, she noticed that two or three gentle- 
 men contrived to speak on every subject, whether 
 they knew any thing about the matter or not. 
 One everlasting clatter of the tongue seem to
 
 LOCAL LEARNING. 155 
 
 characterize them in a special manner from all 
 the others. They are those who " darken coun- 
 cil hy words, without knoivledge.'' They were 
 evidently quite exhausted by such^^unceasing pul- 
 monary efforts, and yet they never allowed an 
 opportunity to escape of having the last word. 
 
 Mrs. Fox felt an inward conviction that those 
 everlasting talkers had no influence, whatever ; 
 and that the interests of the Commonwealth 
 were positively neglected while these gabbling 
 fungi are permitted to prate forever about 
 nothing. She saw that the house was perfectly 
 indifferent to their perpetual speeches. The 
 speaker appeared so utterly spirit broken in 
 being compelled to witness many horrible mur- 
 ders of the king's English, as she has been in- 
 formed are committed without the fear of con- 
 sequences to reputation, twenty times a day, 
 that she had no desire to hear what was repre- 
 sented as being perfectly nauseating, by those 
 who are the most competent judges. 
 
 Mrs. Fox feels assured, from a personal exami- 
 nation, that there is considerable room for im- 
 provement in the mode of managing tkings at 
 the State House. For example, in tlie Origon 
 territory, more light is wanted ; and in Texas, 
 more understanding. Speaking trumpets should
 
 lob LOCAL LEARNING. 
 
 be procured at the expense of the treasury or 
 ***** Esq. be seated on the gallery railing, 
 by order of the committee on Insurance, to re- 
 echo the lucid sentiments and to transmit by 
 reflection, the coruscations of wit which now 
 blazen and die in these lateral elevated appen- 
 dages of Massachusetts legislation. 
 
 Unknown to her friends, having never di- 
 vulged the fact before, she informed me that 
 she had also inspected the legislature of New 
 York, at Albany. There were more demi- 
 members outside, than in, — with their pockets 
 stuffed with multifarious projects for benefiting 
 the people. But on reading some of them, for 
 no envelope was proof against clairvoyance, she 
 was ready to exclaim in the governor's ear — 
 
 " The people have all patriots growii, 
 
 They talk of public good and mean their own." 
 
 Brokers, principally from New York, were 
 extremely numerous about the Capitol. When- 
 ever one of them could nab a member by the 
 button, he was sure to exhibit very cogent rea- 
 sons for being listened to awhile. Whether 
 certificates of stock were offered below par, or 
 a plan by which the representative could escape 
 the responsibilities which the law held, in ter-
 
 LOCAL LEARNING, 157 
 
 rorem over the head of a manager of a mis- 
 managed monied institution, was not clearly 
 ascertained. Both occasionally gave evident 
 indications of being in the utmost perplexity. 
 She observed that the whole assembly were 
 taking the Matchless Sanative, supposed to be 
 an infaJible remedy for all political disorders in 
 the State. 
 
 She also made a survey of the operating room 
 of a very celebrated foreign occulist, who suc- 
 ceeded in opening the eyes of the great poten- 
 tates of Europe. Louis Philip is entirely indebted 
 to him for that distinctness of vision with which 
 he perceives the designs of those opposed to the 
 aggrandizement of his royal household. Know- 
 ing something of this gentleman's wide-spread- 
 ing philanthropy in the city of Boston, it was ex- 
 tremely pleasant to discover that his " own pur- 
 chased " house in New York was the reward of 
 disinterested benevolence. Mrs. Fox was not 
 pained by the sight of blind processions, as in for- 
 mer seasons, grouping their way to the benefac- 
 tor's residence. A perfect calm reigned within, 
 and the doctor sat like a philosopher, over a tub 
 of rain-water, filling small phials, labelled "sight 
 TO THE BLIND." ''Neither advice or medicine 
 given by Dr. Williams^ ex-occulist to the king of 
 14
 
 158 LOCAL LEARNING, 
 
 Brobdinag, without an advance fee of fifty doU 
 lars. Applicants cannot he admitted without a 
 recommendation of some ivell-knoion clergyman," 
 
 Having learned that he is hourly expected to 
 re-visit the metropolis of the north, the scene of 
 his former meritorious exploits on the pur-blind 
 optics of the suffering community, I indulge a 
 hope that he will be received with that eclat 
 which is due to such an illustrions character. 
 Never was there a time when the people so 
 much needed to have their eyes opened by a 
 skilful hand, as at the present moment. 
 
 1 was on the point of giving another paragraph 
 on the principles of banking in Massachusetts, 
 with a learned comment on the policy of the 
 legislature, and what the General Court is called 
 upon, by the threatening aspect of the times, to 
 do, to save the Commonwealth, when I came 
 abruptly to the bottom of the sheet, on which 
 there was no room for a dissertation ; so the 
 reader is respectfully referred to my next volume 
 for a continuation of Mrs. Fox's discoveries, 
 while under the unexplained influences of Ani- 
 mal Magnetism.
 
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