It is only fair to state that recent experiments on the Continent have convinced a number of leading scientists of the genuineness of Eusapia Paladino's powers, and the conclusions arrived at by the Cambridge investigators are condemned as hasty and premature. But, even of the other class, those who have lent themselves to the conditions of the investigator, while admitting the bona-fides of the medium, we are by no means prepared to regard them as necessarily the result of the action of disembodied spirits. Nor do many leading spiritualists themselves. For, as we have just seen, there is still another explanation for supernormal physical movements. May there not be an unknown, or at least an unrecognised, extension of human muscular faculty? Such a hypothesis is no more extravagant than would have been the hypothesis of the Hertzian waves or a prediction of wireless telegraphy a few short years ago. This is not all. We must remember that there is a mass of phenomena which cannot lightly be explained away by glib references to unknown extensions of muscular faculty. Of such is the fire ordeal, one of the most inexplicable and best attested of the manifestations presented by Daniel Dunglas Home. The evidence is abundant and of high quality, the witnesses of undoubted integrity, and, from the nature of the experiment, the illuminations of the room were generally more adequate than in the case of the levitations and elongations. On one occasion, Home thrust his hand into the fire, and bringing out a red-hot cinder laid it upon a pocket-handkerchief. When at the end of half-a-minute it was removed, the handkerchief was quite free from any traces of burning. Not content with handling glowing embers himself, Home would hand them on to others present at the _séance_, who were generally able to receive them with impunity. This effectually disposes of the theory formulated by an ingenious critic that Home was in the custom of covering his hands with some fire-proof preparation as yet unknown to science! Even if Home possessed and used such a preparation he would find considerable difficulty in transferring it to the hands of his spectators. Here is an account of a _séance_ which took place on the 9th May 1871. After various manifestations, two out of the four candles in the room were extinguished. Home went to the fire, took out a piece of red-hot charcoal, and placed it on a folded cambric pocket-handkerchief which he borrowed for the purpose from one of the guests. He fanned the charcoal to white heat with his breath, but the handkerchief was only burnt in one small hole. Mr Crookes, who was present at the _séance_, tested the handkerchief afterwards in his laboratory and found that it had not been chemically prepared to resist the action of fire. After this exhibition--