The Gilded Man: A Romance of the AndesSmyth, Clifford
Science
The Gilded Man: A Romance of the Andes
Smyth, Clifford
Andes Region -- Fiction; El Dorado -- Fiction; Science fiction
Leighton strode to the center of the room and thence down to that end of
it where the tools of his laboratory were kept. David and Una followed,
enjoying the momentary relief from the scrutiny of the old savant, who
was now, apparently, engrossed in his scientific apparatus. There was
not much of the latter in sight, and to the novice unfamiliar with the
interior of a physicist's laboratory, and who carries away a confused
impression of glass and metal jars, tubes, coils of wire, electric
batteries, revolving discs, and all the nameless paraphernalia of such a
place, the appointments of Harold Leighton's workshop would seem simple
enough. Yet, the machine before which Leighton paused comprised one
of the newest discoveries in this branch of science. Its sensational
purpose was to measure and probe the mind through the purely physical
operations of the body.
What appeared to be, at first glance, an ordinary galvanometer stood
by itself on a table. Its polished brass frame, its flawless glass
cylinder enclosing the coils of wire, recording discs and needle,
suggested nothing more than the instrument, familiar to the physicist,
by which an electric current is measured and tested. Connected with this
galvanometer, however, was a curious contrivance consisting of a mirror,
over the spotless surface of which, when the machine was in operation,
a ray of light, projected from an electrified metal index, or finger,
moved back and forth. The exact course of this ray of light, the twists
and turns made by it in traversing the mirror, was transferred by an
automatic pencil to a sheet of paper carried on a revolving cylinder.
This paper thus became a permanent record of whatever experiment had
been attempted.
That the subjects investigated by this unique galvanometer were human
and not inanimate was indicated by two electrodes, attached by wires
hanging from the machine, intended to be grasped by the hands of a
person undergoing the test. Its use, also, as a detector of human
thought and emotion, and not of mechanical force, was described by its
name--the Electric Psychometer.
IV
THE GHOST OF THE FORGOTTEN
"Modern rack and thumbscrew," exclaimed David, eyeing curiously the
machine whose gleaming surface of glass and polished metal was in
striking contrast with the somber oratory.
Harold Leighton paid no heed to the comment. He was apparently too
busied with some detail in the complicated mechanism before him to
attend to anything else. David and Una, on the other hand, were more
amused than impressed with the odd kind of entertainment chosen for
this memorable evening of their betrothal by the eccentric scientist,
although every now and then some unexpected bit of irony from him came
disconcertingly enough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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