[2] Sir John Franklin was a celebrated Arctic explorer. In 1845 he was appointed to the command of an expedition sent out by the British Admiralty in search of the northwest passage. The expedition sailed from Greenhithe, May 18, 1845, and was last spoken off the entrance of Lancaster Sound, July 26, 1845. Thirty-nine relief expeditions, public and private, were sent out from England and America in search of the missing explorer between 1847 and 1857. McClintock found traces of the missing expedition in 1859, which confirmed previous rumors of its total destruction. [3] _New York World_, October 21, 1888. [4] See Appendix A. [5] Could this possibly have been “in answer to prayer” as now claimed? [6] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his book, “Our American Adventures,” states: “The original house was removed by pious hands and reconstructed, as I understand it, at Lily Dale. It is not generally known that when it was pulled down or it may have been before, the bones of the murdered peddler and his tin box were discovered buried in the cellar, as was stated in the original rappings. The rappings were in 1848, the discovery in 1903. What have our opponents to say to this?” According to Margaret Fox’s confession, Doyle’s statements are misleading and contrary to the facts. [7] There were three investigations by competent investigators. One in Buffalo by medical doctors, one in Philadelphia by the Seybert Commission of the University of Pennsylvania, and one in Boston by a committee of professors from Harvard University. Any one of the three would have resulted disastrously for the medium had the conditions and requirements demanded by the investigators been complied with. A suspicion was well founded in the minds of the investigators as to the actual solution of the problem, but they were not permitted to proceed to a finish, the mediums hedging each time when a crucial test was proposed. [8] I have been warned while writing this book to be careful regarding my statement of the confession of Margaret Fox. I am also fully aware of the fact that Dr. Funk writes in his book, “The Widow’s Mite”: “Margaret Fox, not long before her death, confessed that she and her sister had duped the public. This unfortunate woman had sunk so low that for five dollars she would have denied her own mother and sworn to anything. At that time her affidavit for or against anything should not be given the slightest weight.” Mr. W. S. Davis, himself a practicing medium, who knew Margaret Fox Kane personally, wrote me: