lighter than the one up-stairs, was lifted up much more; that is to say, to a height of several inches. M. N. and a young man nineteen years old tried leaning with all their might on the corners of the piano which were rising. Then one of two things happened: either their resistance was in vain, and the piano continued to rise, or else the music-stool on which the child sat moved rapidly back as if pushed or jerked. If occurrences like that had only taken place once we might think that the child or the persons present were laboring under some illusion. But they were repeated a great number of times, for a fortnight, in the presence of different witnesses. Then, one day, a violent manifestation took place, and thenceforth no unusual event occurred in the house. At first, it was in the morning and in the evening that these perturbations manifested themselves; then, invariably at any and all hours, they occurred every time the child took his seat at the piano, after five or ten minutes of playing. The phenomena happened only with this boy, although there were others present (musicians); and it made no difference which of the pianos in the house he used. I saw these instruments. The smaller, on the ground floor, is a rectangular horizontal piano. According to my calculations, a force of about 165 pounds applied to the edge of the case, beneath the key-board, is necessary to lift this piano as it was lifted by the unknown force. The instrument in the first story of the house is a heavy Erard piano, weighing, with the packing-box in which it was sent, 812 pounds, as stated in the way-bill, which I myself saw. According to my approximate calculations a pressure of 440 pounds is required to lift this piano, under the same conditions as the first was lifted. I do not think that anyone will be tempted to attribute to the direct muscular effort of a child eleven years old the lifting up a weight of 440 pounds.[57] A lady who had attributed the effect produced to the action of the knees passed her own hand between the edge of the piano and the knees of the child, and was thus able to convince herself that her explanation had no foundation in fact. Even when the child got upon his knees upon the piano-stool to play, he did not find that the perturbations he dreaded ceased any the more. These authenticated facts of Professor Thury are at once precise and formidable. What! two pianos rise from the floor and jump about! What do the physicists, the chemists, the learned pedants in office need, then, to arouse them from their torpor and make them shake their ears and open their eyes? What shall be done to remove their noble and pharisaical indolence?