"The recorded story is that Michael Scott, being bound by contract to procure perpetual employment for a number of young demons, was worried out of his life in inventing jobs for them, until at last he set them to make ropes out of sea-sand, which they never could do. We have obtained a very curious correspondence between the wizard Michael and his demon slaves; but we do not feel at liberty to say how it came into our hands. We much regret that we did not receive it in time for the British Association. It appears that the story, true as far as it goes, was never finished. The demons easily conquered the rope difficulty, by the simple process of making the sand into glass, and spinning the glass into thread which they twisted. Michael, thoroughly disconcerted, hit upon the plan of setting some to square the circle, others to find the perpetual motion, etc. He commanded each of them to transmigrate from one human body into another, until their tasks were done. This explains the whole succession of cyclometers and all the heroes of the Budget. Some of this correspondence is very recent; it is much blotted, and we are not quite sure of its meaning. It is full of figurative allusions to driving something illegible down a steep into the sea. It looks like a humble petition to be allowed some diversion in the intervals of transmigration; and the answer is: "'Rumpat et serpens iter institutum' "a line of Horace, which the demons interpret as a direction to come athwart the proceedings of the Institute by a sly trick." And really those who have followed carefully the history of the men who have claimed that they had solved these famous problems, will be almost inclined to accept De Morgan's ingenious explanation as something more than a mere "skit." The whole history of the philosopher's stone, of machines and contrivances for obtaining perpetual motion, and of circle-squaring, is permeated with accounts of the most gross and obvious frauds. That ignorance played an important part in the conduct of many who have put forth schemes based upon these pretended solutions is no doubt true, but that a deliberate attempt at absolute fraud was the mainspring in many cases cannot be denied. Like _Dousterswivel_ in "The Antiquary," many of the men who advocated these delusions may have had a sneaking suspicion that there might be some truth in the doctrines which they promulgated; but most of them knew that their particular claims were groundless, and that they were put forward for the purpose of deceiving some confiding patron from whom they expected either money or the credit and glory of having done that which had been hitherto considered impossible.