170. Accordingly, as soon almost as the medium placed her hands on the plate resting on the ball, and without any other communication with the table, the disk began to revolve in such a way as to bring the letters under the index in due alphabetic order. Afterward various names were spelled, and communications were made. At subsequent sittings, the grandfather and brother of the medium manifested their presence successively by spelling their names on the disk. My father, by means of this apparatus, gave me the name of an uncle who was killed by the Arabs nearly seventy years ago. In order that, without any possibility of contact with the legs, the medium might sit at the table, the length was subsequently extended to six feet, being so made as to separate into three parts, for convenience in carrying from one place to another. It is under this modification that it is represented in Plate 2 accompanied by a description, with the medium sitting as when employed in obtaining some of the manifestations herein mentioned. On the left may be seen the wheels and axle. The front wheel may be distinguished, with its groove securing the band which embraces it, together with the pulley on the disk. 171. The disk represented in this figure differs from the one represented above, (employed in my first investigations,) in having the alphabet in the usual order. But they are so made as that one can be made to replace the other, when requisite. 172. On one side of the long table, Plate 2, a board or tray on castors is represented. This was used sometimes as a support for the hands of the medium, by its being interposed between them and the table. On one occasion, where the hands of the medium were supported by the plate and ball upon this tray, it was moved briskly to and fro upon the table, the hands of the medium and the ball and plate accompanying the motion. 173. On various subsequent occasions I have had this experiment of putting the hands of the medium on a plate and balls repeated, and with the same result. The interposition of the plate and balls makes it much more difficult for spirits to move a table than when the hands are directly applied. In the latter case, the spirits actuate the hands primarily, and the table or apparatus secondarily; but when the hands are incapacitated from influencing the motion, the spirit has to assail the inanimate matter directly, assisted only by an emanation from the medium. In this attack upon ponderable matter, the spirits of the second sphere are the most capable; but even with their assistance, the condition of the medium must be very favourable to render success possible.