As the interest in the subject is rapidly growing, my readers will probably welcome a somewhat longer gossip on this than I usually devote to a single subject. Such an extension is the more demanded as the newspaper and magazine articles which have hitherto appeared have, for the most part, by following the lead of the “Quarterly Review,” strangely muddled the whole subject, and misstated the position of Mr. Crookes and others. In the first place, all the writers who follow the “Quarterly” omit any mention or allusion to Mr. Crookes’s preliminary paper published in July, 1870, which has a most important bearing on the whole subject, as it expounds the object of all the subsequent researches. Mr. Crookes there states that “Some weeks ago the fact that I was engaged in investigating Spiritualism, so-called, was announced in a contemporary (the “Athenæum”), and in consequence of the many communications I have since received, I think it desirable to say a little concerning the investigations which I have commenced. Views or opinions I cannot be said to possess on a subject which I do not profess to understand. I consider it the duty of scientific men, who have learned exact modes of working, to examine phenomena which attract the attention of the public, in order to confirm their genuineness, or to explain, if possible, the delusions of the honest, and to expose the tricks of the deceivers.” He then proceeds to state the case of Science _versus_ Spiritualism thus:—“The Spiritualist tells of bodies weighing 50 or 100 lbs. being lifted up into the air without the intervention of any known force; but the scientific chemist is accustomed to use a balance which will render sensible a weight so small that it would take ten thousand of them to weigh one grain; he is, therefore, justified in asking that a power, professing to be guided by intelligence, which will toss a heavy body to the ceiling, shall also cause his delicately-poised balance to move under test conditions.” “The Spiritualist tells of rooms and houses being shaken, even to injury, by superhuman power. The man of science merely asks for a pendulum to be sent vibrating when it is in a glass-case, and supported on solid masonry.” “The Spiritualist tells of heavy articles of furniture moving from one room to another without human agency. But the man of science has made instruments which will divide an inch into a million parts, and he is justified in doubting the accuracy of the former observations, if the same force is powerless to move the index of his instrument one poor degree.” “The Spiritualist tells of flowers with the fresh dew on them, of fruit, and living objects being carried through closed windows, and even solid brick walls. The scientific investigator naturally asks that an additional weight (if it be only the 1000th part of a grain) be deposited on one pan of his balance when the case is locked. And the chemist asks for