"Two of the gentlemen, Prof. Agassiz and Mr. Lunt, omitted throughout all the sessions to comply with invitations to sit in the circle around the table, and there was not, in any instance or at any point, any opportunity for Dr. Gardner to exercise 'the determination of all the accessory circumstances.' The former gentleman, it seems, was permitted to exercise his own choice as to being in the circle, but not so the latter. Dr. Gardner's friends have been disappointed, and the chief disappointment was at the manners and actions and mental and emotional states of two of the Committee and a representative of _The Courier_. "No chickens were hatched on this occasion, where the hen was kept in perpetual agitation, and was often driven from her nest during the period of incubation; _but it does not follow that eggs never contain a vital principle_. Let the proper conditions be observed, let natural laws have legitimate play, and the latent vital principle will take form and embodiment and come forth from the shell a thing of life and power. It is easy to prevent the hatching of an egg, for the Committee did that with very little trouble. But many hens 'steal to their nests,' and in secluded spots, where natural laws are conformed to, the hatching processes still go on in spite of human science. "ALLEN PUTNAM. "ROXBURY, July 10, 1857." I must here bear testimony to the uniform politeness--I may say kindness--with which I was personally treated by Prof. Agassiz, however rough may have been his occasional treatment of some of the other mediums. So far as _we_ were concerned, he exhibited nothing but that perfect gentlemanhood which lent another grace to his mental greatness and scientific attainment. There has always remained on my mind the impression of something mysterious as having clouded his general conduct in this "investigation." He was indeed in a false position, and ought never to have been a member of that committee of professors, inasmuch as it was of such serious importance to Prof. Felton (afterwards president), who was virtually the prosecuting officer against Spiritualism, and so vehement in his public antagonism to it, and who was also so closely connected by marriage with Agassiz, his _father-in-law_ (I believe), that a failure to support Felton in this must have complicated family relations. I must also add that I found Prof. Horsford unexceptionable as a kind and courteous gentleman. I think that at the bottom of the committee's strange conduct in only making an "award" on a money question, which no longer existed before them, and then remaining in the ridiculous position of never making their promised "report," notwithstanding the challenges and the jeers of the Spiritualist papers and orators, lay, in some degree at least, the facts of this awkwardness of domestic difficulties, and the impossibility of getting the professors united upon any report.