and may be constantly recognized in artifi- the mind. The same thing is observed in cial somnambulism. The patient becomes cases of catalepsy, and in those where anmotionless and insensible; the will ceases æsthetics are employed. The dream is a to control the limbs; and, in extreme cases, combination of ideas from within and imevery part of the frame continues to preserve pressions from without-the degree in which the attitude in which it has once been placed. either preponderate differing, of course, acThe muscles seem to be alone affected; the cording to the accidents of each particular rest of the system continues in its normal case. Another proof of the close connection. state; the heart beats regularly, and the between animal magnetism and the other breathing is undisturbed; the senses are recognized affections of the nervous system dulled, and sometimes this stage is preceded is, that all alike frequently commence with by attacks of delirium. All this obviously convulsive attacks. Several celebrated praccorresponds very much with the condition into which a professor of animal magnetism throws his patient. In the same way, the insensibility to pain produced in artificial somnambulism presents many points of analogy with the insensibility produced both by catalepsy and by the employment of anæsthetics, and, accordingly, offers no contradiction to the ordinary laws of physiology.

titioners have stated that the persons whom they threw into a condition of somnambulism very commonly suffered in this way, and the inhalation of ether has been known to produce effects of a very kindred description. But it is from the observation of natural somnambulism that M. Maury thinks that the most satisfactory evidence of this connection will be obtained, and the careless theories of supernatural agency be most conclusively refuted. The peculiarities of this affection are most curious. The somnambulist sees-sometimes appears indifferent to light. The famous Castelli used in his sleep to translate from Italian into French, and for this purpose to look out words in the dictionary. Having accidentally once extinguished his candle, he had to grope his way to find the means of re-lighting it; and it has been observed that, where somnambulists dispense with light, it is generally where they have been previously accustomed to the locality, and so, from the mind being intensely fixed upon it, may recall its outline with accuracy, or where an exquisitely keen sense of touch might lead them to avoid any obstacles that presented themselves to their progress. The concentration of thought upon a particular idea seems a leading feature of both natural and artificial somnambulism. The magnetized somnambulist is lost to every thing but the person operating upon him and the ideas which he suggests, just as the ordinary sleep-walker is lost to every thing but the idea which happens to be supreme in his thoughts.

Another characteristic of artificial somnambulism, which more than any other has been employed to justify its pretences to the supernatural, is the heightened sensibility and the intellectual excitement which it often entails. This often shows itself in an extraordinary power of memory, and a rapidity and ease of speech, quite distinct from any faculty ordinarily possessed, and has given rise to the belief in the divine or diabolic inspiration of the person so affected. The same thing, however, is constantly observed in hysterical diseases, and partially in the case of persons who are under the effects of ether. In fact, the understanding is so closely bound up with the nervous system that, if the one is seriously affected, some correspondingly important result is sure to show itself in the other-very often in the way of some suddenly developed power. Hence it is that madmen often astonish by their force of memory, and sometimes by their flow of language. A text or prayer that has once fallen on the ear seems to recur with perfect distinctness to the mind of the most ignorant and untrained person; and Coleridge mentions a case of a mad servant who repeated sentences of a Greek This theory of course involves the abanFather which had accidentally been read donment of many of the extravagant and fanaloud in her presence. Precisely the same tastic notions with which the whole subject sort of development of power seems often to was formerly encumbered. It is no longer result from somnambulism. M. Maury says necessary to believe that somnambulists see that he has frequently found the same accu- out of the backs of their heads, or from the racy in the replies of somnambulists which pits of their stomachs, or from their finger's he has observed in the case of hysteria, and ends. Neither are they gifted with the facthe same curious propriety of language, ulty of prevision, nor are they privileged to sometimes amounting to eloquence. Natu- know every thing which is going on inside ral somnambulism is a dream in action. The their own persons, nor the hour at which somnambulist is absorbed by some one idea, their illness will reach its climax, nor the and external sensations either find a sub-remedy which is destined for its cure. sidiary place, or else fail altogether to reach these are mere exaggerations of powers which

All

a heightened nervous sensibility may un-duced by violent efforts of attention, and in doubtedly in a certain degree confer. Mad the case of a girl, even by merely fixing the people, epileptic and hysterical patients, often eyes upon the sun. This fact once recogmake very good guesses as to the time when nized, all the performances of animal-magtheir attacks will take place, and ordinary netizers, electro-biologists, and the rest of sleep furnishes a most curious instance of the the tribe, are quite divested of their mystery. mind in certain states unconsciously possess- In some instances, the end is gained by the ing an extremely accurate perception of time. mere contemplation of the practitioner. In Lastly, there is nothing extraordinary in a others, the eyes are fixed upon the little person feeling at times more than usually metal plate. Invariably there is the distinct conscious of organic modifications taking and continued effort of attention. After all, place in the system, for this is common to the process professes to succeed only on a various other conditions of the body besides few, and those favored few are of course persomnambulism. sons constitutionally inclined to nervous affections. Still the result is no mere illusion, but something real and tangible. To this must be added the enormously powerful agency of imitation, by which every condition of the nerves is inclined to propagate itself, and which even in the case of natural somnambulism is shown by well-authenticated stories to be extremely efficacious. One instance is recorded in which a student who had been attending lectures on the subject of somnambulism became a somnambulist himself, and shortly afterwards infected the servant who was in charge of him with the same irregularity. An English writer on this subject mentions a family with an hereditary disposition to somnambulism. The various members used to roam about the house during the night-time, and, not being favored with an exceptional clairvoyance, were constantly coming into personal collisions of the most comically annoying description.

Having thus placed the matter on a rational footing, M. Maury goes on to show how the processes which the professors of animal magnetism employ may very naturally be expected to produce the results which we know they do. Often, indeed, the imagination is of itself sufficient to accomplish the desired end. The celebrated Abbé Faria used merely to place his patients in an armchair, look fixedly at them, and exclaim, "Dormez!" and by this simple means he commonly succeeded in sending them to sleep. But frequently, there is no doubt that the result of somnolency is to be attributed to material agency without any intervention of the imagination. The well-known experiment of drawing a white line from the beak of a cock, and so leaving it unconscious and immovable, is a sufficient proof of some actual effect produced upon the brain by the eyes being thus brought to bear upon a focus; and fifteen years ago an English physician discovered that, by holding a bright object before a patient's eyes, and obliging him to fix his attention exclusively on that, a state of magnetic somnambulancy might be obtained, beginning first with an extraordinary excitement of the faculties, and gradually verging into entire insensibility. This contrivance seems to be of great antiquity. In the sixteenth century, the monks of Mount Athos would seem to have known it, when, by fixing the sight on a single object, and concentrating the attention, they found that a divine spectacle was revealed to them; and the phenomenon is entirely explicable by the action on the brain of the flow of blood produced by the steady contemplation of an object which arrests attention, and impresses itself on the retina of the eye. Precisely similar effects are found in those instances of hysteria which take their rise from a disordered condition of the circulation. Instances occur in which epilepsy has been in

In conclusion, M. Maury enters a protest against that false and irrational sentiment which would regard conditions of the body, such as that of somnambulism, with a respectful and almost superstitious consideration. So far from rising above himself at such moments, man sinks below the essential dignity of his nature. Reason is half eclipsed; the will is extinct; the sense of identity is lost. The benefits to be derived from somnambulism are of another kind. It throws a curious light upon the connection between our physical organization and our intellectual existence, and proves very forcibly the effects of a disordered frame upon the imagination. In its artificial form it may soothe excitement and alleviate pain. Science must take it for what it is worth, and especially guard it from the ignorance which would invest it with the mystery of the supernatural, and from the quackery which is eager to employ it as a means of gain.

5

LADY JANE FRANKLIN. AMONG the passengers by the Adriatic is Lady Jane Franklin, a woman whose name has for years been linked with all that is noble, heroic, and Christian; and it seems not inappropriate that we should briefly sketch the events that have brought her so prominently before the public.

Lady Jane was the daughter of John Griffin, Esq., F.S.A., and became the second wife of Sir John Franklin on the 8th of March, 1828, in the twenty-eighth year of her age. In 1836 she accompanied her husband to Tasmania, or Van Dieman's Land, over which he had been appointed governor, and returned with him to England in 1843. The people of Tasmania have ever held in grateful memory the kind deeds of Sir John and his wife, and long after their departure they sent to Lady Franklin the sum of £1,700, to assist in defraying the expenses of the search for her absent husband.

On the 19th day of May, 1845, Sir John set out from England in search of a northwest passage, expecting to return in a couple of years at the furthest. Toward the close of 1847 alarm began to be felt for the safety of the party, and early in the following year three different expeditions were despatched by the British government in search of the missing navigators.

The failure of these to find any traces of Franklin's party induced the government, in 1849, to offer a reward of £20,000 to any private exploring party, of any country, which should succeed in aiding the lost navigators. At this time began the efforts of Lady Franklin, which have won for her the admiration of the world. From her own private purse she caused to be transported to Cape Hay, on the southern side of Lancaster Bay, a cargo of coals and provisions, to be at the service of any who should venture upon the search for her husband.

lin, and commanded by Captain Penny; the schooner Prince Albert, two-thirds of the cost of which was defrayed by Lady Franklin; the American expedition, consisting of the Lieutenant De Haven; and lastly, the North Advance and Rescue, under command of Star, a transport ship, containing stores for the expedition of Sir James Ross.

None of these were successful, and both the British and American nations were inclined to relinquish all further efforts to determine the fate of Franklin and his party, who had now been absent over six years. But not so with Lady Franklin. The report brought back by Sir John Ross, that the Franklin party had been murdered by the Esquimaux in Wostenholm Sound, induced this devoted wife to send, in the summer of 1852, the screw steamer Isabel, Commander Inglefield, to make a thorough examination of the Sound. Three months previous, however, Sir Edward Belcher was sent out by the government in command of five vessels, the Assistance, Resolute, North Star, Pioneer, and Intrepid. In the spring of the year following, the celebrated Kane expedition sailed from New York, and at nearly the same time Lady Franklin despatched the steamer Isabel and the ship Rattlesnake, while the Lady Franklin and Phoenix were sent to Barrow's straits, to aid Sir Edward Belcher.

Excepting the valuable scientific discoveries made by these several expeditions, particularly by that of Dr. Kane, little progress was made in ascertaining the fate of the Franklin party, and the hopes of the most sanguine were given up. Still the wife of the explorer, with that womanly feeling which knows no such word as despair, determined to make one final effort to settle the question. Cheerfully emptying her purse-now very low, because of the repeated drains upon it; and persuading her friends to aid her, she fitted out the little steamer Fox, and In the year 1850 no less than eight expe- in 1857 Captain McClintock, with twentyditions were fitted out, which may be briefly eight stalwart British seamen, bade farewell enumerated as follows: That of Dr. Rae; to England until they should ascertain, if posthe Behring's Strait expedition, consisting sible, the fate of Sir John Franklin. The of the Enterprise, Capt. Collinson, and the search proved a successful one. On the Investigator, Commander McClure; the gov- north-west coast of King William's Island a ernment Baffin's Bay expedition, consisting simple piece of board was found, telling a tale of the ships Resolute, Captain Austin, and which none had heard before, that the ships the Assistance, Captain Ommaney, together Erebus and Terror had been abandoned on with the screw propellers Pioneer and In- the 22d of April, 1848, and-saddest of all trepid, in charge of Captain Sherrard Os--that the leader of the party had died on borne; the schooner Felix, with a small the 11th of June, 1847, the very year that tender, the Mary, put forward by public sub- he expected to return home. The news scription, and commanded by Sir John Ross; reached England in September last.

the Lady Franklin, fitted out by Lady Frank- | Thus were the efforts of Lady Franklin

of an earnest, faithful, Christian woman. Accompanied by a niece, she now visits this country, to become the guest of Mr. Henry Grinnell, and to acknowledge in person her sense of his humane and generous efforts in her cause.-New York World.