Chapter XIII: Front Matter (13)

“The three of us—my two brothers and myself—had crossed over to
the islands about two o’clock P. M., and had soon nearly loaded
the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were more
plenty that day than we had ever known them. It was just seven,
_by my watch_, when we weighed and started for home, so as to
make the worst of the Ström at slack water, which we knew would
be at eight.

“We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and for
some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of
danger, for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend
it. All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over
Helseggen. This was most unusual—something that had never
happened to us before—and I began to feel a little uneasy,
without exactly knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but
could make no headway at all for the eddies, and I was upon the
point of proposing to return to the anchorage, when, looking
astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with a singular
copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.

“In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, and
we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This
state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us
time to think about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon
us—in less than two the sky was entirely overcast—and what with
this and the driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that we
could not see each other in the smack.

“Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describing.
The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced any thing like it.
We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us;
but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if
they had been sawed off—the mainmast taking with it my youngest
brother, who had lashed himself to it for safety.

“Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon
water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small hatch near
the bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten
down when about to cross the Ström, by way of precaution against
the chopping seas. But for this circumstance we should have
foundered at once—for we lay entirely buried for some moments.
How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I
never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as
I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my
feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands
grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the fore-mast. It was mere
instinct that prompted me to do this—which was undoubtedly the
very best thing I could have done—for I was too much flurried to
think.

“For some moments we were completely deluged, as I say, and all
this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When I could
stand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still keeping
hold with my hands, and thus got my head clear. Presently our
little boat gave herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming
out of the water, and thus rid herself, in some measure, of the
seas. I was now trying to get the better of the stupor that had
come over me, and to collect my senses so as to see what was to
be done, when I felt somebody grasp my arm. It was my elder
brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he
was overboard—but the next moment all this joy was turned into
horror—for he put his mouth close to my ear, and screamed out the
word ‘_Moskoe-ström!_’

“No one ever will know what my feelings were at that moment. I
shook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent fit of
the ague. I knew what he meant by that one word well enough—I
knew what he wished to make me understand. With the wind that now
drove us on, we were bound for the whirl of the Ström, and
nothing could save us!

“You perceive that in crossing the Ström _channel_, we always
went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather,
and then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack—but now we
were driving right upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane
as this! ‘To be sure,’ I thought, ‘we shall get there just about
the slack—there is some little hope in that’—but in the next
moment I cursed myself for being so great a fool as to dream of
hope at all. I knew very well that we were doomed, had we been
ten times a ninety-gun ship.

“By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or
perhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded before it, but
at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the
wind, and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute
mountains. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens.
Around in every direction it was still as black as pitch, but
nearly overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular rift of
clear sky—as clear as I ever saw—and of a deep bright blue—and
through it there blazed forth the full moon with a lustre that I
never before knew her to wear. She lit up every thing about us
with the greatest distinctness—but, oh God, what a scene it was
to light up!

“I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother—but, in
some manner which I could not understand, the din had so
increased that I could not make him hear a single word, although
I screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook
his head, looking as pale as death, and held up one of his
fingers, as if to say _‘listen! ‘_

“At first I could not make out what he meant—but soon a hideous
thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was
not going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst
into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. _It had run
down at seven o’clock! We were behind the time of the slack, and
the whirl of the Ström was in full fury!_

“When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden,
the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always
to slip from beneath her—which appears very strange to a
landsman—and this is what is called _riding_, in sea phrase.

“Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but
presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the
counter, and bore us with it as it rose—up—up—as if into the sky.
I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. And
then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made
me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty
mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up I had thrown a
quick glance around—and that one glance was all sufficient. I saw
our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-Ström whirlpool was
about a quarter of a mile dead ahead—but no more like the
every-day Moskoe-Ström than the whirl as you now see it, is like
a mill-race. If I had not known where we were, and what we had to
expect, I should not have recognised the place at all. As it was,
I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched
themselves together as if in a spasm.

“It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we
suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The
boat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in its
new direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring
noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill
shriek—such a sound as you might imagine given out by the
waste-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels, letting off their
steam all together. We were now in the belt of surf that always
surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course, that another
moment would plunge us into the abyss, down which we could only
see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we
wore borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at
all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the
surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard
arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge
writhing wall between us and the horizon.

“It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of
the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching
it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great
deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was
despair that strung my nerves.

“It may look like boasting—but what I tell you is truth—I began
to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a
manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a
consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful
a manifestation of God’s power. I do believe that I blushed with
shame when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I
became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl
itself. I positively felt a _wish_ to explore its depths, even at
the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was
that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore
about the mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular
fancies to occupy a man’s mind in such extremity—and I have often
thought since, that the revolutions of the boat around the pool
might have rendered me a little light-headed.

“There was another circumstance which tended to restore my
self-possession; and this was the cessation of the wind, which
could not reach us in our present situation—for, as you saw
yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general
bed of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high,
black, mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a
heavy gale, you can form no idea of the confusion of mind
occasioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, deafen,
and strangle you, and take away all power of action or
reflection. But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these
annoyances—just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed
petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom is yet
uncertain.

“How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to
say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying
rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the
middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible
inner edge. All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My
brother was at the stern, holding on to a small empty water-cask
which had been securely lashed under the coop of the counter, and
was the only thing on deck that had not been swept overboard when
the gale first took us. As we approached the brink of the pit he
let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from which, in
the agony of his terror, he endeavored to force my hands, as it
was not large enough to afford us both a secure grasp. I never
felt deeper grief than when I saw him attempt this act—although I
knew he was a madman when he did it—a raving maniac through sheer
fright. I did not care, however, to contest the point with him. I
knew it could make no difference whether either of us held on at
all; so I let him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask.
This there was no great difficulty in doing; for the smack flew
round steadily enough, and upon an even keel—only swaying to and
fro, with the immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely
had I secured myself in my new position, when we gave a wild
lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss. I
muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was over.

“As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had
instinctively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed my
eyes. For some seconds I dared not open them—while I expected
instant destruction, and wondered that I was not already in my
death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment elapsed.
I still lived. The sense of falling had ceased; and the motion of
the vessel seemed much as it had been before, while in the belt
of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along. I took
courage, and looked once again upon the scene.

“Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and
admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be
hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface
of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose
perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but
for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for
the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of
the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I
have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along
the black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of
the abyss.

“At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately.
The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld.
When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell
instinctively downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an
unobstructed view, from the manner in which the smack hung on the
inclined surface of the pool. She was quite upon an even
keel—that is to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel with that
of the water—but this latter sloped at an angle of more than
forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our
beam-ends. I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had
scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in
this situation, than if we had been upon a dead level; and this,
I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we revolved.

“The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the
profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on
account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped,
and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow
and tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway
between Time and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt
occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of the funnel, as
they all met together at the bottom—but the yell that went up to
the Heavens from out of that mist, I dare not attempt to
describe.

“Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam
above, had carried us a great distance down the slope; but our
farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round we
swept—not with any uniform movement—but in dizzying swings and
jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards—sometimes
nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward,
at each revolution, was slow, but very perceptible.

“Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we
were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only
object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were
visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and
trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of
house furniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have already
described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my
original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer
and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a
strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our
company. I _must_ have been delirious, for I even sought
_amusement_ in speculating upon the relative velocities of their
several descents toward the foam below. ‘This fir tree,’ I found
myself at one time saying, ‘will certainly be the next thing that
takes the awful plunge and disappears,’—and then I was
disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant ship
overtook it and went down before. At length, after making several
guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all—this fact—the
fact of my invariable miscalculation, set me upon a train of
reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat
heavily once more.

“It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a
more exciting _hope_. This hope arose partly from memory, and
partly from present observation. I called to mind the great
variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden,
having been absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-ström.
By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the
most extraordinary way—so chafed and roughened as to have the
appearance of being stuck full of splinters—but then I distinctly
recollected that there were _some_ of them which were not
disfigured at all. Now I could not account for this difference
except by supposing that the roughened fragments were the only
ones which had been _completely absorbed_—that the others had
entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or, for some
reason, had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not
reach the bottom before the turn of the flood came, or of the
ebb, as the case might be. I conceived it possible, in either
instance, that they might thus be whirled up again to the level
of the ocean, without undergoing the fate of those which had been
drawn in more early, or absorbed more rapidly. I made, also,
three important observations. The first was, that, as a general
rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their
descent—the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the
one spherical, and the other _of any other shape_, the
superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere—the third,
that, between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and
the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more
slowly. Since my escape, I have had several conversations on this
subject with an old school-master of the district; and it was
from him that I learned the use of the words ‘cylinder’ and
‘sphere.’ He explained to me—although I have forgotten the
explanation—how what I observed was, in fact, the natural
consequence of the forms of the floating fragments—and showed me
how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered
more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater
difficulty than an equally bulky body, of any form whatever. (*1)

“There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in
enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn
them to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we
passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a
vessel, while many of these things, which had been on our level
when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool,
were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little
from their original station.

“I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself
securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose
from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I
attracted my brother’s attention by signs, pointed to the
floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my
power to make him understand what I was about to do. I thought at
length that he comprehended my design—but, whether this was the
case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move
from his station by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach
him; the emergency admitted of no delay; and so, with a bitter
struggle, I resigned him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask
by means of the lashings which secured it to the counter, and
precipitated myself with it into the sea, without another
moment’s hesitation.

“The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is
myself who now tell you this tale—as you see that I _did_
escape—and as you are already in possession of the mode in which
this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that
I have farther to say—I will bring my story quickly to
conclusion. It might have been an hour, or thereabout, after my
quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast distance
beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid
succession, and, bearing my loved brother with it, plunged
headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of foam below. The
barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than half
the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which
I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in the
character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast
funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the
whirl grew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the
froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf
seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone
down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I
found myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the
shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where the pool of the
Moskoe-ström _had been_. It was the hour of the slack—but the sea
still heaved in mountainous waves from the effects of the
hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel of the Ström,
and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast into the
‘grounds’ of the fishermen. A boat picked me up—exhausted from
fatigue—and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the
memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old
mates and daily companions—but they knew me no more than they
would have known a traveller from the spirit-land. My hair which
had been raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it
now. They say too that the whole expression of my countenance had
changed. I told them my story—they did not believe it. I now tell
it to _you_—and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it
than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden.”

VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY

After the very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say
nothing of the summary in ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ with the detailed
statement just published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be
supposed, of course, that in offering a few hurried remarks in
reference to Von Kempelen’s discovery, I have any design to look
at the subject in a scientific point of view. My object is
simply, in the first place, to say a few words of Von Kempelen
himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the honor of a slight
personal acquaintance), since every thing which concerns him must
necessarily, at this moment, be of interest; and, in the second
place, to look in a general way, and speculatively, at the
results of the discovery.

It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations
which I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to
be a general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this
kind, from the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding
as it unquestionably is, is unanticipated.

By reference to the ‘Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy’ (Cottle and
Munroe, London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that
this illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in
question, but had actually made no inconsiderable progress,
experimentally, in the very identical analysis now so
triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempelen, who although he
makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt (I say
it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to
the ‘Diary’ for at least the first hint of his own undertaking.

The paragraph from the ‘Courier and Enquirer,’ which is now going
the rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the
invention for a Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I
confess, a little apocryphal, for several reasons; although there
is nothing either impossible or very improbable in the statement
made. I need not go into details. My opinion of the paragraph is
founded principally upon its manner. It does not look true.
Persons who are narrating facts, are seldom so particular as Mr.
Kissam seems to be, about day and date and precise location.
Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come upon the discovery he
says he did, at the period designated—nearly eight years ago—how
happens it that he took no steps, on the instant, to reap the
immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have known would
have resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large,
from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man
of common understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam
says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby—so
like an owl—as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who is
Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the ‘Courier and
Enquirer’ a fabrication got up to ‘make a talk’? It must be
confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little
dependence is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if
I were not well aware, from experience, how very easily men of
science are mystified, on points out of their usual range of
inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at finding so eminent
a chemist as Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kissam’s (or is it
Mr. Quizzem’s?) pretensions to the discovery, in so serious a
tone.

But to return to the ‘Diary’ of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet
was not designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the
writer, as any person at all conversant with authorship may
satisfy himself at once by the slightest inspection of the style.
At page 13, for example, near the middle, we read, in reference
to his researches about the protoxide of azote: ‘In less than
half a minute the respiration being continued, diminished
gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on
all the muscles.’ That the respiration was not ‘diminished,’ is
not only clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the
plural, ‘were.’ The sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: ‘In
less than half a minute, the respiration [being continued, these
feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded by [a
sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.’ A
hundred similar instances go to show that the MS. so
inconsiderately published, was merely a rough note-book, meant
only for the writer’s own eye, but an inspection of the pamphlet
will convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my
suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last man
in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had
he a more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly
afraid of appearing empirical; so that, however fully he might
have been convinced that he was on the right track in the matter
now in question, he would never have spoken out, until he had
every thing ready for the most practical demonstration. I verily
believe that his last moments would have been rendered wretched,
could he have suspected that his wishes in regard to burning this
‘Diary’ (full of crude speculations) would have been unattended
to; as, it seems, they were. I say ‘his wishes,’ for that he
meant to include this note-book among the miscellaneous papers
directed ‘to be burnt,’ I think there can be no manner of doubt.
Whether it escaped the flames by good fortune or by bad, yet
remains to be seen. That the passages quoted above, with the
other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do
not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet
remains to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself
(momentous under any circumstances) will be of service or
disservice to mankind at large. That Von Kempelen and his
immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it would be folly to
doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not to
‘realize,’ in time, by large purchases of houses and land, with
other property of intrinsic value.

In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the ‘Home
Journal,’ and has since been extensively copied, several
misapprehensions of the German original seem to have been made by
the translator, who professes to have taken the passage from a
late number of the Presburg ‘Schnellpost.’ ‘Viele’ has evidently
been misconceived (as it often is), and what the translator
renders by ‘sorrows,’ is probably ‘lieden,’ which, in its true
version, ‘sufferings,’ would give a totally different complexion
to the whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely
guess, on my part.

Von Kempelen, however, is by no means ‘a misanthrope,’ in
appearance, at least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance
with him was casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in
saying that I know him at all; but to have seen and conversed
with a man of so _prodigious_ a notoriety as he has attained, or
_will_ attain in a few days, is not a small matter, as times go.

“The Literary World” speaks of him, confidently, as a native of
Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in “The Home Journal”)
but I am pleased in being able to state _positively_, since I
have it from his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the
State of New York, although both his parents, I believe, are of
Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with
Mäelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short
and stout, with large, _fat_, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers,
a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose.
There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank,
and his whole manner noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he
looks, speaks, and acts as little like ‘a misanthrope’ as any man
I ever saw. We were fellow-sojourners for a week about six years
ago, at Earl’s Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I presume
that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or
four hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the
day; and nothing that fell from him led me to suspect his
scientific attainments. He left the hotel before me, intending to
go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the latter city
that his great discovery was first made public; or, rather, it
was there that he was first suspected of having made it. This is
about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von
Kempelen; but I have thought that even these few details would
have interest for the public.

There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors
afloat about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about
as much credit as the story of Aladdin’s lamp; and yet, in a case
of this kind, as in the case of the discoveries in California, it
is clear that the truth may be stranger than fiction. The
following anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated, that we
may receive it implicitly.

Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his
residence at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been
put to extreme shifts in order to raise trifling sums. When the
great excitement occurred about the forgery on the house of
Gutsmuth & Co., suspicion was directed toward Von Kempelen, on
account of his having purchased a considerable property in
Gasperitch Lane, and his refusing, when questioned, to explain
how he became possessed of the purchase money. He was at length
arrested, but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the
end set at liberty. The police, however, kept a strict watch upon
his movements, and thus discovered that he left home frequently,
taking always the same road, and invariably giving his watchers
the slip in the neighborhood of that labyrinth of narrow and
crooked passages known by the flash name of the ‘Dondergat.’
Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a
garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called
Flatzplatz,—and, coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they
imagined, in the midst of his counterfeiting operations. His
agitation is represented as so excessive that the officers had
not the slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing him,
they searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears he
occupied all the mansarde.

Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten
feet by eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which
the object has not yet been ascertained. In one corner of the
closet was a very small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and
on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible—two crucibles connected
by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of lead in a
state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube,
which was close to the brim. The other crucible had some liquid
in it, which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously
dissipating in vapor. They relate that, on finding himself taken,
Kempelen seized the crucibles with both hands (which were encased
in gloves that afterwards turned out to be asbestic), and threw
the contents on the tiled floor. It was now that they hand-cuffed
him; and before proceeding to ransack the premises they searched
his person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a
paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterward
ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some unknown
substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All
attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far, failed,
but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted.

Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went
through a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was
found, to the chemist’s sleeping-room. They here rummaged some
drawers and boxes, but discovered only a few papers, of no
importance, and some good coin, silver and gold. At length,
looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair trunk,
without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying carelessly
across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out
from under the bed, they found that, with their united strength
(there were three of them, all powerful men), they ‘could not
stir it one inch.’ Much astonished at this, one of them crawled
under the bed, and looking into the trunk, said:

‘No wonder we couldn’t move it—why it’s full to the brim of old
bits of brass!’

Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good
purchase, and pushing with all his force, while his companions
pulled with all theirs, the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid
out from under the bed, and its contents examined. The supposed
brass with which it was filled was all in small, smooth pieces,
varying from the size of a pea to that of a dollar; but the
pieces were irregular in shape, although more or less
flat-looking, upon the whole, “very much as lead looks when
thrown upon the ground in a molten state, and there suffered to
grow cool.” Now, not one of these officers for a moment suspected
this metal to be anything _but_ brass. The idea of its being
_gold_ never entered their brains, of course; how _could_ such a
wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well
conceived, when the next day it became known, all over Bremen,
that the “lot of brass” which they had carted so contemptuously
to the police office, without putting themselves to the trouble
of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not only gold—real gold—but
gold far finer than any employed in coinage—gold, in fact,
absolutely pure, virgin, without the slightest appreciable alloy.

I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen’s confession (as
far as it went) and release, for these are familiar to the
public. That he has actually realized, in spirit and in effect,
if not to the letter, the old chimaera of the philosopher’s
stone, no sane person is at liberty to doubt. The opinions of
Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest consideration; but
he is by no means infallible; and what he says of bismuth, in his
report to the Academy, must be taken _cum grano salis_. The
simple truth is, that up to this period all analysis has failed;
and until Von Kempelen chooses to let us have the key to his own
published enigma, it is more than probable that the matter will
remain, for years, in statu quo. All that as yet can fairly be
said to be known is, that ‘Pure gold can be made at will, and
very readily from lead in connection with certain other
substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.’

Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate
results of this discovery—a discovery which few thinking persons
will hesitate in referring to an increased interest in the matter
of gold generally, by the late developments in California; and
this reflection brings us inevitably to another—the exceeding
inopportuneness of Von Kempelen’s analysis. If many were
prevented from adventuring to California, by the mere
apprehension that gold would so materially diminish in value, on
account of its plentifulness in the mines there, as to render the
speculation of going so far in search of it a doubtful one—what
impression will be wrought now, upon the minds of those about to
emigrate, and especially upon the minds of those actually in the
mineral region, by the announcement of this astounding discovery
of Von Kempelen? a discovery which declares, in so many words,
that beyond its intrinsic worth for manufacturing purposes
(whatever that worth may be), gold now is, or at least soon will
be (for it cannot be supposed that Von Kempelen can long retain
his secret), of no greater value than lead, and of far inferior
value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to
speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery,
but one thing may be positively maintained—that the announcement
of the discovery six months ago would have had material influence
in regard to the settlement of California.

In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise
of two hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly
twenty-five per cent. that of silver.

MESMERIC REVELATION

Whatever doubt may still envelop the _rationale_ of mesmerism, its startling _facts_ are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession—an unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute waste of time than the attempt to _prove_, at the present day, that man, by mere exercise of will, can so impress his fellow, as to cast him into an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very closely those of _death_, or at least resemble them more nearly than they do the phenomena of any other normal condition within our cognizance; that, while in this state, the person so impressed employs only with effort, and then feebly, the external organs of sense, yet perceives, with keenly refined perception, and through channels supposed unknown, matters beyond the scope of the physical organs; that, moreover, his intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and invigorated; that his sympathies with the person so impressing him are profound; and, finally, that his susceptibility to the impression increases with its frequency, while, in the same proportion, the peculiar phenomena elicited are more extended and more _pronounced_.

I say that these—which are the laws of mesmerism in its general features—it would be supererogation to demonstrate; nor shall I inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration; to-day. My purpose at present is a very different one indeed. I am impelled, even in the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail without comment the very remarkable substance of a colloquy, occurring between a sleep-waker and myself.

I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in question (Mr. Vankirk), and the usual acute susceptibility and exaltation of the mesmeric perception had supervened. For many months he had been laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more distressing effects of which had been relieved by my manipulations; and on the night of Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his bedside.

The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary symptoms of asthma. In spasms such as these he had usually found relief from the application of mustard to the nervous centres, but to-night this had been attempted in vain.

As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally, quite at ease.

“I sent for you to-night,” he said, “not so much to administer to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain psychal impressions which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety and surprise. I need not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto been on the topic of the soul’s immortality. I cannot deny that there has always existed, as if in that very soul which I have been denying, a vague half-sentiment of its own existence. But this half-sentiment at no time amounted to conviction. With it my reason had nothing to do. All attempts at logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me more sceptical than before. I had been advised to study Cousin. I studied him in his own works as well as in those of his European and American echoes. The ‘Charles Elwood’ of Mr. Brownson, for example, was placed in my hands. I read it with profound attention. Throughout I found it logical, but the portions which were not _merely_ logical were unhappily the initial arguments of the disbelieving hero of the book. In his summing up it seemed evident to me that the reasoner had not even succeeded in convincing himself. His end had plainly forgotten his beginning, like the government of Trinculo. In short, I was not long in perceiving that if man is to be intellectually convinced of his own immortality, he will never be so convinced by the mere abstractions which have been so long the fashion of the moralists of England, of France, and of Germany. Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold on the mind. Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I am persuaded, will always in vain call upon us to look upon qualities as things. The will may assent—the soul—the intellect, never.

“I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and never intellectually believed. But latterly there has been a certain deepening of the feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the acquiescence of reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish between the two. I am enabled, too, plainly to trace this effect to the mesmeric influence. I cannot better explain my meaning than by the hypothesis that the mesmeric exaltation enables me to perceive a train of ratiocination which, in my abnormal existence, convinces, but which, in full accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, does not extend, except through its _effect_, into my normal condition. In sleep-waking, the reasoning and its conclusion—the cause and its effect—are present together. In my natural state, the cause vanishing, the effect only, and perhaps only partially, remains.

“These considerations have led me to think that some good results might ensue from a series of well-directed questions propounded to me while mesmerized. You have often observed the profound self-cognizance evinced by the sleep-waker—the extensive knowledge he displays upon all points relating to the mesmeric condition itself; and from this self-cognizance may be deduced hints for the proper conduct of a catechism.”

I consented of course to make this experiment. A few passes threw Mr. Vankirk into the mesmeric sleep. His breathing became immediately more easy, and he seemed to suffer no physical uneasiness. The following conversation then ensued:—V. in the dialogue representing the patient, and P. myself.

_P._ Are you asleep?

_V._ Yes—no; I would rather sleep more soundly.

_P._ [_After a few more passes._] Do you sleep now?

_V._ Yes.

_P._ How do you think your present illness will result?

_V._ [_After a long hesitation and speaking as if with effort_.]
I must die.

_P._ Does the idea of death afflict you?

_V._ [_Very quickly_.] No—no!

_P._ Are you pleased with the prospect?

_V._ If I were awake I should like to die, but now it is no
matter. The mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me.

_P._ I wish you would explain yourself, Mr. Vankirk.

_V._ I am willing to do so, but it requires more effort than I
feel able to make. You do not question me properly.

_P._ What then shall I ask?

_V._ You must begin at the beginning.

_P._ The beginning! But where is the beginning?

_V._ You know that the beginning is GOD. [_This was said in a
low, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound
veneration_.]

_P._ What then, is God?

_V._ [_Hesitating for many minutes._] I cannot tell.

_P._ Is not God spirit?

_V._ While I was awake I knew what you meant by “spirit,” but now
it seems only a word—such, for instance, as truth, beauty—a
quality, I mean.

_P._ Is not God immaterial?

_V._ There is no immateriality—it is a mere word. That which is
not matter, is not at all—unless qualities are things.

_P._ Is God, then, material?

_V._ No. [_This reply startled me very much._]

_P._ What, then, is he?

_V._ [_After a long pause, and mutteringly._] I see—but it is a
thing difficult to tell. [_Another long pause._] He is not
spirit, for he exists. Nor is he matter, as _you understand it_.
But there are _gradations_ of matter of which man knows nothing;
the grosser impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser.
The atmosphere, for example, impels the electric principle, while
the electric principle permeates the atmosphere. These gradations
of matter increase in rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a
matter _unparticled_—without particles—indivisible—_one;_ and
here the law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The
ultimate, or unparticled matter, not only permeates all things
but impels all things; and thus _is_ all things within itself.
This matter is God. What men attempt to embody in the word
“thought,” is this matter in motion.

_P._ The metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible to
motion and thinking, and that the latter is the origin of the
former.

_V._ Yes; and I now see the confusion of idea. Motion is the
action of _mind_, not of _thinking_. The unparticled matter, or
God, in quiescence, is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men
call mind. And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect
to human volition) is, in the unparticled matter, the result of
its unity and omniprevalence; _how_ I know not, and now clearly
see that I shall never know. But the unparticled matter, set in
motion by a law, or quality, existing within itself, is thinking.

_P._ Can you give me no more precise idea of what you term the
unparticled matter?

_V._ The matters of which man is cognizant escape the senses in
gradation. We have, for example, a metal, a piece of wood, a drop
of water, the atmosphere, a gas, caloric, electricity, the
luminiferous ether. Now we call all these things matter, and
embrace all matter in one general definition; but in spite of
this, there can be no two ideas more essentially distinct than
that which we attach to a metal, and that which we attach to the
luminiferous ether. When we reach the latter, we feel an almost
irresistible inclination to class it with spirit, or with
nihility. The only consideration which restrains us is our
conception of its atomic constitution; and here, even, we have to
seek aid from our notion of an atom, as something possessing in
infinite minuteness, solidity, palpability, weight. Destroy the
idea of the atomic constitution and we should no longer be able
to regard the ether as an entity, or at least as matter. For want
of a better word we might term it spirit. Take, now, a step
beyond the luminiferous ether—conceive a matter as much more rare
than the ether, as this ether is more rare than the metal, and we
arrive at once (in spite of all the school dogmas) at a unique
mass—an unparticled matter. For although we may admit infinite
littleness in the atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness
in the spaces between them is an absurdity. There will be a
point—there will be a degree of rarity, at which, if the atoms
are sufficiently numerous, the interspaces must vanish, and the
mass absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic
constitution being now taken away, the nature of the mass
inevitably glides into what we conceive of spirit. It is clear,
however, that it is as fully matter as before. The truth is, it
is impossible to conceive spirit, since it is impossible to
imagine what is not. When we flatter ourselves that we have
formed its conception, we have merely deceived our understanding
by the consideration of infinitely rarified matter.

_P._ There seems to me an insurmountable objection to the idea of
absolute coalescence;—and that is the very slight resistance
experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions through
space—a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in
_some_ degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have
been quite overlooked by the sagacity even of Newton. We know
that the resistance of bodies is, chiefly, in proportion to their
density. Absolute coalescence is absolute density. Where there
are no interspaces, there can be no yielding. An ether,
absolutely dense, would put an infinitely more effectual stop to
the progress of a star than would an ether of adamant or of iron.

_V._ Your objection is answered with an ease which is nearly in
the ratio of its apparent unanswerability.—As regards the
progress of the star, it can make no difference whether the star
passes through the ether _or the ether through it_. There is no
astronomical error more unaccountable than that which reconciles
the known retardation of the comets with the idea of their
passage through an ether: for, however rare this ether be
supposed, it would put a stop to all sidereal revolution in a
very far briefer period than has been admitted by those
astronomers who have endeavored to slur over a point which they
found it impossible to comprehend. The retardation actually
experienced is, on the other hand, about that which might be
expected from the _friction_ of the ether in the instantaneous
passage through the orb. In the one case, the retarding force is
momentary and complete within itself—in the other it is endlessly
accumulative.

_P._ But in all this—in this identification of mere matter with
God—is there nothing of irreverence? [_I was forced to repeat
this question before the sleep-waker fully comprehended my
meaning_.]

_V._ Can you say _why_ matter should be less reverenced than
mind? But you forget that the matter of which I speak is, in all
respects, the very “mind” or “spirit” of the schools, so far as
regards its high capacities, and is, moreover, the “matter” of
these schools at the same time. God, with all the powers
attributed to spirit, is but the perfection of matter.

_P._ You assert, then, that the unparticled matter, in motion, is
thought?

_V._ In general, this motion is the universal thought of the
universal mind. This thought creates. All created things are but
the thoughts of God.

_P._ You say, “in general.”

_V._ Yes. The universal mind is God. For new individualities,
_matter_ is necessary.

_P._ But you now speak of “mind” and “matter” as do the
metaphysicians.

_V._ Yes—to avoid confusion. When I say “mind,” I mean the
unparticled or ultimate matter; by “matter,” I intend all else.

_P._ You were saying that “for new individualities matter is
necessary.”