Correspondence.

— Mr. President, Permit me a few clarifications concerning Thilorier and his discoveries (see the Review of August 1860). Thilorier was my friend; when he showed me the plan of his cast-iron apparatus for liquefying carbonic acid gas, I had told him that, despite the thickness of the walls, it would explode like cannons after a certain number of experiments; for that reason I advised him to wrap it in wrought iron, as is done today with cast-iron cannons, but he limited himself to adding ribs.

Never did an apparatus of this kind burst in his hands, for he would have been killed like young Frémy; but the committee of the Academy prudently kept itself behind the wall while he calmly prepared his experiment. He had already been deaf for several years, which had forced him to resign from his post as postal inspector. The only explosion that struck him down was that of the butt of an air-rifle, filled with carbonic acid, which he had placed in the sun, on the grass of the garden.

That experiment, which I had suggested to him, as well as to Mr. Galy Cazala, showed him to what high pressure carbonic acid gas could rise, and the danger of its use in weapons of war. As for Galy, he had the idea of replacing hydrogen with carbonic acid, but the latter never managed to exceed 28 atmospheres. It was too little. Without that, gunpowder would have been usefully suppressed, because its mechanism was of the simplest, and a small copper cylinder could easily contain a hundred shots, according to need, in consequence of the almost instantaneous restoration of pressure, by the decomposition of water, by means of sulfuric acid and zinc filings. If our chemists were to find a gas that could be produced under a pressure intermediate between that of carbonic acid and that of hydrogen, the problem would be solved. This is what it would be good to ask of Lavoisier, Berzelius, or Dalton. On the eve of his death, Thilorier was giving me explanations about a new apparatus, almost finished, in order to liquefy atmospheric air by means of successive pressures, capable of withstanding 500 to 1,000 atmospheres. Will they have sold this fine machine for scrap iron?

I said that Thilorier was extremely deaf, so that on entering his study in the Place Vendôme, weeks before his death, I had to shout. He covered his ears with both hands, saying that I would restore to him the deafness of which he had fortunately been relieved by the magnetizer Lafontaine, now in Geneva. I left marveling at the cure, which that same afternoon I announced to my two friends Galy Cazala [Antoine Galy-Cazala, professor of physics and inventor] and Captain Delvigne, with whom I was strolling on the Place de la Bourse, when we noticed Thilorier with his ear pressed to the shop window of a store, where someone was playing the piano. He seemed in ecstasy, at being able to enjoy modern music, which he had not heard for many years. Ah! by God! I said to my two skeptics, here is the proof; go behind our man and pronounce his name in a normal voice. Thilorier turned around abruptly, recognized his friends, conversed with them and strolled with them, as he ordinarily did. Delvigne, who is at this moment in my office, remembers this fact perfectly, a very interesting one for magnetism. However much I may have tried to convince our academicians in the course of the last thirty days, said Thilorier, they will not believe that I was cured without the drugs of their pharmacopoeia, which do not cure, for I employed them all without success, whereas Lafontaine's two fingers completely restored my hearing in a few sessions. I remember that, delighted with magnetism, Thilorier had succeeded in inverting the poles of a magnetized bar, which he held, by the mere effort of will. The death of this learned inventor deprived us of a host of discoveries of which he had spoken to me and which he carried with him to the grave. He was as shrewd as that good Darcet, whom I had likewise seen full of health on the eve of his death, and who had shown me his books, poorly preserved and stained, and saying that he was sure he would give me more pleasure presenting them in that state than well bound and with a gilded spine in a library. It is singular, he said to me, how much our ideas resemble each other, although we were not educated in the same school. Then he told me of the regret he had felt at having been so criticized concerning his nutritive gelatin, and that he would have done better, he said, had he sold it at the price of a penny a pound to the poor of the Pont Neuf, than presenting it to the academicians, who pay 15 francs at the provision shops and still claim that it does not nourish. Evoke, then, this brave technologist. Arago teaches us that the supposed spots of the Sun are nothing but fragments of planets that come to enrich themselves at the focus of electricity with the fluids they lack, in order to constitute themselves into a comet that will begin its course within a century. These fragments, as large as Europe, are more than 500,000 leagues from the Sun; and, having arrived at the extreme limit of their attraction, when the Earth shall have described about a quarter of its course on the ecliptic, that is, about three months (we are at the 6th of July), these fragments, inseparable from their constellation, will have disappeared from our eyes.

The Academy is occupying itself with our memoir on catalepsy, which you were wrong to cast into the basket of excommunications. No matter; you will return to it.

Accept, etc.

Jobard. n

Observation. — We thank Mr. Jobard for the interesting details which he was good enough to send us about Thilorier, and which are all the more precious as they are authentic. One always likes to know the truth about the men who have distinguished themselves in life.

Mr. Jobard is mistaken in thinking that we put into the basket of oblivion the notice that Mr. B… sent us about catalepsy. In the first place, it was read at the Society, as appears in the minutes of May 4 and 11, published in the Review of June 1860; the original, instead of being set aside, is carefully preserved in the archives of the Society. We did not publish this voluminous document because, in the first place, if we had to publish everything that is sent to us, perhaps ten volumes a year would be necessary for us; and, in the second place, because everything must come in its time. But, because a thing has not been published, it must not for that reason be considered lost. Nothing is lost of that which is communicated to us, whether to us or to the Society, and we always find it again, to make use of it at the opportune moment. This is what the persons who wish to send us documents should be persuaded of. Often we lack the material time to answer them as promptly and as extensively as it would, no doubt, be fitting to do. How, however, can one answer in detail thousands of letters a year, when one is obliged to do everything personally and has no secretary to help? Certainly the day would not suffice for all that we have to do, if we did not devote to it a part of our nights. This said, by way of personal justification, we shall add, with respect to the theory of the formation of the Earth, contained in the memoir cited, as well as to the cataleptic state of living beings at their origin, that the Society was advised to wait, before pursuing such studies, in order that more authentic documents might be presented to it [see Mr. Jobard]. “One must be wary — said its spiritual guides — of the systematic ideas of Spirits, as much as of those of men, and not accept them lightly and without control, if we do not wish to expose ourselves, later on, to seeing contradicted what we may have accepted with too much haste. It is because we take an interest in your works that we wish to keep you on guard against a reef where so many ardent imaginations are dashed, seduced by deceptive appearances. Remember that in one thing alone you will never be deceived: it is in that which concerns the moral improvement of men; therein lies the true mission of good Spirits. But do not think that they have the power to discover for you what the secret of God is; above all, do not believe that they are charged with smoothing for you the rugged path of Science, since this is acquired only at the cost of work and assiduous research. When the moment comes to reveal a discovery useful to Humanity, we shall seek out the man capable of carrying it to a good end; we shall inspire in him the idea of occupying himself with it, and we leave him all the merit. But where would the work and the merit be, if it sufficed for him to ask the Spirits for the means of acquiring, without effort, science, honors, and riches? Be, then, prudent, and do not set out upon a path where you would have only disappointments and which would in no way contribute to your advancement. Those who let themselves be dragged into it will recognize, one day, how mistaken they were, and will regret not having employed their time better.” Such is the summary of the instructions that the Spirits have so often given, to us and to the Society. From experience, we have even come to recognize their wisdom. This is why the communications relating to scientific research have for us only a secondary importance. We do not reject them; we welcome everything that is transmitted to us, because in everything there is something to learn; but we accept it only on the condition of verifying it beforehand, guarding ourselves against lending it a blind and unreflecting faith: we observe and we wait. Mr. Jobard, who is a positive man and of great good sense, will understand better than anyone that this is the best way to preserve ourselves from the danger of utopias. Certainly it is not we who will be accused of wanting to stay in the rear, but we wish to avoid a false step and everything that could compromise the credit of Spiritism, by giving prematurely as incontestable truths what is still hypothetical. We think that these observations will be equally appreciated by other persons who, to be sure, will understand the inconvenience of anticipating the moment for certain publications. Experience will show them the necessity of not always taking into account the impatience of certain Spirits. The truly superior Spirits — and we do not refer to those who pass themselves off as such — are very prudent, a virtue that constitutes one of the characters by which we can recognize them.

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Jean-Baptiste-Ambroise-Marcellin Jobard. Author of Le nouvelles inventions — Google Books.