(W. T. Ca.)
CRUSTUMERIUM,an ancient town of Latium, on the edge of the Sabine territory, near the headwaters of the Allia, not far from the Tiber. It appears several times in the early history of Rome, but was conquered in 500B.C.according to Livy ii. 19, thetribus Crustumina[orClustumina] being formed in 471B.C.Pliny mentions it among the lost cities of Latium, but the name clung to the district, the fertility of which remained famous. No remains of it exist, and its exact site is uncertain.
See T. Ashby inPapers of the British School at Rome, iii. 50.
See T. Ashby inPapers of the British School at Rome, iii. 50.
CRUVEILHIER, JEAN(1791-1874), French anatomist, was born at Limoges in 1791, and was educated at the university of Paris, where in 1825 he became professor of anatomy. In 1836 he became the first occupant of the recently founded chair of pathological anatomy. He died at Jussac in 1874. His chief works areAnatomie descriptive(1834-1836);Anatomie pathologique du corps humain(1829-1842), with many coloured plates;Traité d’anatomie pathologique générale(1849-1864);Anatomie du système nerveux de l’homme(1845);Traité d’anatomie descriptive(1851).
CRUZ E SILVA, ANTONIO DINIZ DA(1731-1799), Portuguese heroic-comic poet, was the son of a Lisbon carpenter who emigrated to Brazil shortly before the poet’s birth, leaving his wife to support and educate her young family by the earnings of her needle. Diniz studied Latin and philosophy with the Oratorians, and in 1747 matriculated at Coimbra University, where he wrote his first versus about 1750. In 1753 he took his degree in law, and returning to the capital, devoted much of thenext six years to literary work. In 1756 he became one of the founders and drew up the statues of theArcadia Lusitana, a literary society whose aims were the instruction of its members, the cultivation of the art of poetry, and the restoration of good taste. The fault was not his if these ends were not attained, for, taking contemporary French authors as his models, he contributed much, both in prose and verse, to its proceedings, until he left in February 1760 to take up the position ofjuiz de foraat Castello de Vide. On returning to Lisbon for a short visit, he found theArcadiaa prey to the internal dissensions that caused its dissolution in 1774, but succeeded in composing them and in 1764 he went to Elvas to act as auditor of one of the regiments stationed there. During a ten years’ residence, his wide reading and witty conversation gained him the friendship of the governor of that fortress and the admiration of a circle comprising all that was cultivated in Elvas. As in most cathedral and garrison towns, the clerical and military elements dominated society, and here were mutually antagonistic, because of the enmity between their respective leaders, the bishop and the governor. Moreover, Elvas, being a remote provincial centre, abounded in curious and grotesque types. Diniz, who was a keen observer, noted these, and, treasuring them in his memory, reproduced them, with their vanities, intrigues and ignorance, in his masterpiece,Hyssope. In 1768 a quarrel arose between the bishop, a proud, pretentious prelate, and the dean, as to the right of the former to receive holy water from the latter at a private side door of the cathedral, instead of at the principal entrance. The matter being one of principle, neither party would yield what he considered his rights, and it led to a lawsuit, and divided the town into two sections, which eagerly debated the arguments on both sides and enjoyed the ridiculous incidents which accompanied the dispute. Ultimately the dean died, and was succeeded by his nephew, who appealed to the crown with success and the bishop lost his pretension. TheHyssopearose out of and deals with this affair. It was dictated in seventeen days, in the years 1770-1772, and, in its final redaction, consists of eight cantos of blank verse. The pressure of absolutism left open only one form of expression, satire, and in this poem Diniz produced an original work which ridicules the clergy and the prevailing Gallomania, and contains episodes full of humour. It has been compared with Boileau’sLutrin, because both are founded on a petty ecclesiastical quarrel, but here the resemblance ends, and the poem of Diniz is the superior in everything except matrification.
Returning to Lisbon in 1774, Diniz endeavoured once more to resuscitate theArcadia, but his long absence had withdrawn its chief support, its most talented members Garção (q.v.) and Quita were no more, and he only assisted at its demise. In April 1776 he was appointeddisembargadorof the court of Relação in Rio de Janeiro and given the habit of Aviz. He lived in Brazil, devouting his leisure to a study of its natural history and mineralogy, until 1789, when he went back to Lisbon to take up the post ofdisembargadorof the Relação of Oporto; in July 1790 he was promoted, and becamedisembargadorof the Casa da Supplicação. In this year he was sent again to Brazil to assist in trying the leaders of the Republican conspiracy in Minas, in which Gonzaga (q.v.) and the other men of letters were involved, and in December 1792 he became chancellor of the Relação in Rio. Six years later he was named councillor of theConselho Ultramarino, but did not live to return home, dying in Rio on the 5th of October 1799.
Diniz possessed a poetic temperament, but his love of imitating the classics, whose spirit he failed to understand, fettered his muse, and he seems never to have perceived that mythological comparisons and pastoral allegories were poor substitutes for the expression of natural feeling. The conventionalism of his art prejudiced its sincerity, and, inwardly cherishing the belief that poetry was unworthy of the dignity of a judge, he never gave his real talents a chance to display themselves. His Anacreontic odes, dithyrambs and idylls earned the admiration of contemporaries, but his Pindaric odes lack fire, his sonnets are weak, and his idylls have neither the truth nor the simplicity of Quita’s work. As a rule Diniz’s versification is weak and his verses lack harmony, though the diction is beyond cavil.
His poems were published in 6 vols. (Lisbon, 1807-1817). The best edition ofHyssope, to which Diniz owes his lasting fame, is that of J. R. Coelho (Lisbon, 1879), with an exhaustive introductory study on his life and writings. A French prose version of the poem by Boissonade has gone through two editions (Paris, 1828 and 1867), and English translations of selections have been printed in theForeign Quarterly Review, and in theManchester Quarterly(April 1896).See also Dr Theophilo Braga,A. Arcadia Lusitana(Oporto, 1899).
His poems were published in 6 vols. (Lisbon, 1807-1817). The best edition ofHyssope, to which Diniz owes his lasting fame, is that of J. R. Coelho (Lisbon, 1879), with an exhaustive introductory study on his life and writings. A French prose version of the poem by Boissonade has gone through two editions (Paris, 1828 and 1867), and English translations of selections have been printed in theForeign Quarterly Review, and in theManchester Quarterly(April 1896).
See also Dr Theophilo Braga,A. Arcadia Lusitana(Oporto, 1899).
(E. Pr.)
CRYOLITE,a mineral discovered in Greenland by the Danes in 1794, and found to be a compound of fluorine, sodium and aluminium. From its general appearance, and from the fact that it melts readily, even in a candle-flame, it was regarded by the Eskimos as a peculiar kind of ice; from this fact it acquired the name of cryolite (from Gr.κρύος, frost, andλίθος, stone). Cryolite occurs in colourless or snow-white cleavable masses, often tinted brown or red with iron oxide, and occasionally passing into a black variety. It is usually translucent, becoming nearly transparent on immersion in water. The mineral cleaves in three rectangular directions, and the crystals occasionally found in the crevices have a cubic habit, but it has been proved, after much discussion, that they belong to the anorthic system. The hardness is 2.5, and the specific gravity 3. Cryolite has the formula Na3AlF6, or 3NaF·AlF3, corresponding to fluorine 54.4, sodium 32.8, and aluminium 12.8%. It colours a flame yellow, through the presence of sodium, and when heated with sulphuric acid it evolves hydrofluoric acid.
Cryolite occurs almost exclusively at Ivigtut (sometimes written Evigtok) on the Arksut Fjord in S.W. Greenland. There it forms a large deposit, in a granitic vein running through gneiss, and is accompanied by quartz, siderite, galena, blende, chalcopyrite, &c. It is also associated with a group of kindred minerals, some of which are evidently products of alteration of the cryolite, known as pachnolite, thomsenolite, ralstonite, gearksutite, arksutite, &c. Cryolite likewise occurs, though only to a limited extent, at Miyask, in the Ilmen Mountains; at Pike’s Peak, Colorado, and in the Yellowstone Park.
Cryolite is a mineral of much economic importance. It has been extensively used as a source of metallic aluminium, and as a flux in smelting the metal. It is largely employed in the manufacture of certain sodium salts, as suggested by Julius Thomsen, of Copenhagen, in 1849; and it has been used for the production of certain kinds of porcelain and glass, remarkable for its toughness, and for enamelled ware.
Although cryolite is known as “ice-stone” (Eisstein), it is not to be confused with “ice-spar” (Eisspath), which is a vitreous kind of felspar termed “glassy felspar” or rhyacolite.
(F. W. R.*)
CRYPT(Lat.crypta, from the Gr.κρύπτειν, to hide), a vault or subterranean chamber, especially under churches. In classical phraseology “crypta” was employed for any vaulted building, either partially or entirely below the level of the ground. It is used for a sewer (crypta Suburae, Juvenal,Sat.v. 106); for the “carceres,” or vaulted stalls for the horses and chariots in a circus (Sidon. Apoll.Carm.xxiii. 319); for the close porticoes or arcades, more fully known as “cryptoporticus,” attached by the Romans to their suburban villas for the sake of coolness, and to the theatres as places of exercise or rehearsal for the performers (Plin.Epist.ii. 15, v. 6, vii. 21; Sueton.Calig.58; Sidon. Apoll, lib. ii. epist. 2); and for underground receptacles for agricultural produce (Vitruv. vi. 8, Varro,De re rust.i. 57). Tunnels, or galleries excavated in the living rock, were also calledcryptae. Thus the tunnel to the north of Naples, through which the road passes to Puteoli, familiar to tourists as the “Grotto of Posilipo,” was originally designatedcrypta Neapolitana(Seneca, Epist. 57). In early Christian timescryptawas appropriately employed for the galleries of a catacomb, or for the catacomb itself. Jerome calls them by this name when describing his visits to them as a schoolboy, and the term is used by Prudentius (seeCatacombs).
A crypt, as a portion of a church, had its origin in the subterranean chapels known as “confessiones,” erected around the tomb of a martyr, or the place of his martyrdom. This is the origin of the spacious crypts, some of which may be called subterranean churches, of the Roman churches of S. Prisca, S. Prassede, S. Martino ai Monti, S. Lorenzo fuori le Mura, and above all of St Peter’s—the crypt being thus the germ of the church or basilica subsequently erected above the hallowed spot. When the martyr’s tomb was sunk in the surface of the ground, and not placed in a catacomb chapel, the original memorial-shrine would be only partially below the surface, and consequently the part of the church erected over it, which was always that containing the altar, would be elevated some height above the ground, and be approached by flights of steps. This fashion of raising the chancel or altar end of a church on a crypt was widely imitated long after the reason for adopting it ceased, and even where it never existed. The crypt under the altar at the basilica of St Maria Maggiore in Rome is merely imitative, and the same may be said of many of the crypts of the early churches in England. The original Saxon cathedral of Canterbury had a crypt beneath the eastern apse, containing the so-called body of St Dunstan, and other relics, “fabricated,” according to Eadmer, “in the likeness of the confessionary of St Peter at Rome” (seeBasilica). St Wilfrid constructed crypts still existing beneath the churches erected by him in the latter part of the 7th century at Hexham and Ripon. These are peculiarly interesting from their similarity in form and arrangement to the catacomb chapels with which Wilfrid must have become familiar during his residence in Rome. The cathedral, begun by Æthelwold and finished by Alphege at Winchester, at the end of the 10th century, had spacious crypts “supporting the holy altar and the venerable relics of the saints” (Wulstan,Life of St Æthelwold), and they appear to have been common in the earlier churches in England. The arrangement was adopted by the Norman builders of the 11th and 12th centuries, and though far from universal is found in many of the cathedrals of that date. The object of the construction of these crypts was twofold,—to give the altar sufficient elevation to enable those below to witness the sacred mysteries, and to provide a place of burial for those holy men whose relics were the church’s most precious possession. But the crypt was “a foreign fashion,” derived, as has been said, from Rome, “which failed to take root in England, and indeed elsewhere barely outlasted the Romanesque period” (Essays on Cathedrals, ed. Howson, p. 331).
Of the crypts beneath English Norman cathedrals, that under the choir of Canterbury (q.v.) is by far the largest and most elaborate in its arrangements. It is, in fact, a subterranean church of vast size and considerable altitude. The whole crypt was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and contained two chapels especially dedicated to her,—the central one beneath the high altar, enclosed with rich Gothic screen-work, and one under the south transept. This latter chapel was appropriated by Queen Elizabeth to the use of the French Huguenot refugees who had settled at Canterbury in the time of Edward VI. There were also in this crypt a large number of altars and chapels of other saints, some of whose hallowed bodies were buried here. At the extreme east end, beneath the Trinity chapel, the body of St Thomas (Becket) was buried the day after his martyrdom, and lay there till his translation, July 7, 1220.
The cathedrals of Winchester, Worcester and Gloucester have crypts of slightly earlier date (they may all be placed between 1080 and 1100), but of similar character, though less elaborate. They all contain piscinas and other evidences of the existence of altars in considerable numbers. They are all apsidal. The most picturesque is that of Worcester, the work of Bishop Wulfstan (1084), which is remarkable for the multiplicity of small pillars supporting its radiating vaults. Instead of having the air of a sepulchral vault like those of Winchester and Gloucester, this crypt is, in Professor Willis’s words, “a complex and beautiful temple.” Archbishop Roger’s crypt at York, belonging to the next century (1154-1181), was filled up with earth when the present choir was built at the end of the 14th century, and its existence forgotten till its disinterment after the fire of 1829. The choir and presbytery at Rochester are supported by an extensive crypt, of which the western portion is Gundulf’s work (1076-1107), but the eastern part, which displays slender cylindrical and octagonal shafts, with light vaulting springing from them, is of the same period as the superstructure, the first years of the 13th century. This crypt, and that beneath the Early English Lady chapel at Hereford, are the latest English existing cathedral crypts. That at Hereford was rendered necessary by the fall of the ground, and is an exceptional case. Later than any of these crypts was that of St Paul’s, London. This was a really large and magnificent church of Decorated date, with a vaulted roof of rich and intricate character resting on a forest of clustered columns. Part of it served as the parish church of St Faith. A still more exquisite work of the Decorated period is the crypt of St Stephen’s chapel at Westminster, than which it is difficult to conceive anything more perfect in design or more elaborate in ornamentation. Having happily escaped the conflagration of the Houses of Parliament in 1834—before which it was degraded to the purpose of the speaker’s state dining-room—it has been restored to its former sumptuousness of decoration, and is now one of the most beautiful architectural gems in England.
Of Scottish cathedrals the only one that possesses a crypt is the cathedral of Glasgow, rendered celebrated by Sir Walter Scott in his novel ofRob Roy(ch. xx.). At the supposed date of the tale, and indeed till a comparatively recent period, this crypt was used as a place of worship by one of the three congregations among which the cathedral was partitioned, and was known as “the Laigh or Barony Kirk.” It extends beneath the choir transepts and chapter-house; in consequence of the steep declivity on which the cathedral stands it is of unusual height and lightsomeness. It belongs to the 13th century, its style corresponding to Early English, and is simply constructional, the building being adapted to the locality. In architectural beauty it is quite unequalled by any crypt in the United Kingdom, and can hardly anywhere be surpassed. It is an unusually rich example of the style, the clustered piers and groining being exquisite in design and admirable in execution. The bosses of the roof and capitals of the piers are very elaborate, and the doors are much enriched with foliage. “There is a solidity in its architecture, a richness in its vaulting, and a variety of perspective in the spacing of its pillars, which make it one of the most perfect pieces of architecture in these kingdoms” (Fergusson).
In the centre of the main alley stands the mutilated effigy of St Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow, and at the south-east corner is a well called after the same saint.
Crypts under parish churches are not very uncommon in England, but they are usually small and not characterized by any architectural beauty. A few of the earlier crypts, however, deserve notice. One of the earliest and most remarkable is that of the church of Lastingham near Pickering in Yorkshire, on the site of the monastery founded in 648 by Cedd, bishop of the East Saxons. The existing crypt, though exceedingly rude in structure, is of considerably later date than Bishop Cedd, forming part of the church erected by Abbot Stephen of Whitby in 1080, when he had been driven inland by the incursions of the northern pirates. This crypt is remarkable from its extending under the nave as well as the chancel of the upper church, the plan of which it accurately reproduces, with the exception of the westernmost bay. It forms a nave with side aisles of three bays, and an apsidal chancel, lighted by narrow deeply splayed slits. The roof of quadripartite vaulting is supported by four very dwarf thick cylindrical columns, the capitals of which and of the responds are clumsy imitations of classical work with rude volutes. Still more curious is the crypt beneath the chancel of the church of Repton in Derbyshire. This also consists of a centre and side aisles, divided by three arches on either side. The architectural character, however, is very different from that at Lastingham, and is in some respects almost unique, thepiers being slender, and some of them of a singular spiral form, with a bead running in the sunken part of the spiral. Another very extensive and curious Norman crypt is that beneath the chancel of St Peter’s-in-the-East at Oxford. This is five bays in length, the quadripartite vaulting being supported by eight low, somewhat slender, cylindrical columns with capitals bearing grotesque animal and human subjects. Its dimensions are 36 by 20 ft. and 10 ft. in height. This crypt has been commonly attributed to Grymboldt in the 9th century; but it is really not very early Norman. Under the church of St Mary-le-Bow in London there is an interesting Norman crypt not very dissimilar in character to that last described. Of a later date is the remarkably fine Early English crypt groined in stone, beneath the chancel of Hythe in Kent, containing a remarkable collection of skulls and bones, the history of which is quite uncertain. There is also a Decorated crypt beneath the chancel at Wimborne minster, and one of the same date beneath the southern chancel aisle at Grantham.
Among the more remarkable French crypts may be mentioned those of the cathedrals of Auxerre, said to date from the original foundation in 1085; of Bayeux, attributed to Odo, bishop of that see, uterine brother of William the Conqueror, where twelve columns with rude capitals support a vaulted roof; of Chartres, running under the choir and its aisles, frequently assigned to Bishop Fulbert in 1029, but more probably coeval with the superstructure; and of Bourges, where the crypt is in the Pointed style, extending beneath the choir. The church of the Holy Trinity attached to Queen Matilda’s foundation—the “Abbaye aux Dames” at Caen—has a Norman crypt where the thirty-four pillars are as closely set as those at Worcester. The church of St Eutropius at Saintes has also a crypt of the 11th century, of very large dimensions, which deserves special notice; the capitals of the columns exhibit very curious carvings. Earlier than any already mentioned is that of St Gervase of Rouen, considered by E. A. Freeman “the oldest ecclesiastical work to be seen north of the Alps.” It is apsidal, and in its walls are layers of Roman brick. It is said to contain the remains of two of the earliest apostles of Gaul—St Mello and St Avitian. There are numerous crypts in Germany. One at Göttingen may be mentioned, where cylindrical shafts with capitals of singular design support “vaulting of great elegance and lightness” (Fergusson), the curves being those of a horseshoe arch. The crypts of the cathedrals or churches at Halberstadt, Hildesheim and Naumburg also deserve to be noticed; that of Lübeck may be rather called a lower choir. It is 20 ft. high and vaulted.
The Italian crypts, when found, as a rule reproduce the “confessio” of the primitive churches. That beneath the chancel of S. Michele at Pavia is an excellent typical example, probably dating from the 10th century. It is apsidal and vaulted, and is seven bays in length. That at S. Zeno at Verona (c.1138) is still more remarkable; its vaulted roof is upborne by forty columns, with curiously carved capitals. It is approached from the west by a double flight of steps and contains many ancient monuments. S. Miniato at Florence, begun in 1013, has a very spacious crypt at the east end, forming virtually a second choir. It is seven bays in length and vaulted. The most remarkable crypt in Italy, however, is perhaps that of St Mark’s, Venice. The plan of this is almost a Greek cross. Four rows of nine columns each run from end to end, and two rows of three each occupy the arms of the cross, supporting low stunted arches on which rests the pavement of the church above. This also constitutes a lower church, containing achorus cantorumformed by a low stone screen, not unlike that of S. Clemente at Rome (seeBasilica), enclosing a massive stone altar with four low columns. This crypt is reasonably supposed to belong to the church founded by the doge P. Orseolo in 977. There are also crypts deserving notice at the cathedrals of Brescia, Fiesole and Modena, and the churches of S. Ambrogio and S. Eustorgio at Milan. The former was unfortunately modernized by St Charles Borromeo. The crypt at Assisi is really a second church at a lower level, and being built on the steep side of a hill is well lighted. The whole fabric is a beautiful specimen of Italian Gothic, and both the lower and upper churches are covered with rich frescoes.
Domestic crypts are of frequent occurrence. Medieval houses had as a rule their chief rooms raised above the level of the ground upon vaulted substructures, which were used as cellars and storerooms. These were sometimes partially underground, sometimes entirely above it. The underground vaults often remain when all the superstructure has been swept away, and from their Gothic character are frequently mistaken for ecclesiastical buildings. The older English towns are full of crypts of this character, now used as cellars. They occur in Oxford and Rochester, are very abundant in the older parts of Bristol, and, according to J. H. Parker, “nearly the whole city of Chester is built upon a series of them with the Rows or passages made on the top of the vaults” (Domestic Architecture, iii. 91). The crypt of Gerard’s Hall in London, destroyed in the construction of New Cannon Street, figured by Parker (Dom. Arch.ii. 185), was a beautiful example of the lower storey of the residence of a wealthy merchant of the time of Edward I. It was divided down the middle by a row of four slender cylindrical columns supporting a very graceful vault. The finest example of a secular crypt now remaining in England is that beneath the Guildhall of London. The date of this is early in the 15th century—1411. It is a large and lofty apartment, divided into four alleys by two rows of clustered shafts supporting a rich lierne vault with ribs of considerable intricacy. There is a fine vaulted crypt of the same date and of similar character beneath St Mary’s Hall, the Guildhall of the city of Coventry.
(E. V.)
CRYPTEIA(Gr.κρύπτειν, to hide), a kind of secret police in ancient Sparta, founded, according to Aristotle, by Lycurgus; there is, however, no real evidence as to the date of its origin. The institution was under the supervision of the ephors, who, on entering office, annually proclaimed war against the helots (serf-class) and thus absolved from the guilt of murder any Spartan who should slay a helot. It was instituted primarily as a precaution against the ever-present danger of a helot revolt, and secondarily perhaps as a training for young Spartans, who were sent out by the ephors to keep watch on the helots and assassinate any who might appear dangerous. Plato (Laws, i. p. 633) emphasizes the former aspect, but there can be little doubt that, at all events after the revolt of 464 (see Cimon), its more sinister purpose was predominant, as we may gather from the secret massacre of 2000 helots who, on the invitation of the ephors, claimed to have rendered distinguished service (Thuc. iv. 80).
SeeHelots;Ephor; also A. H. J. Greenidge,Handbook of Gk. Const. Hist.(London, 1896); G. Gilbert,Gk. Const. Antiq.(Eng. trans., London, 1895).
SeeHelots;Ephor; also A. H. J. Greenidge,Handbook of Gk. Const. Hist.(London, 1896); G. Gilbert,Gk. Const. Antiq.(Eng. trans., London, 1895).
CRYPTOBRANCHUS,a genus of thoroughly aquatic, but lung-breathing tailed Batrachia, of the familyAmphiumidae, characterized by a heavy, flattened build, a very porous tubercular skin, with a frilled fold along each side, short stout limbs with four very short fingers and five very short toes, and minute eyes without lids. The vertebrae are biconcave, and although the gills are lost in the adult, ossified gill-arches, two to four in number, persist. A strong series of vomerine teeth extends across the palate. Three species of this genus are known. One is the well-known fossil of Oeningen first described asHomo diluvii testisand shown by Cuvier to be nearly related to the gigantic salamander of Japan,Cryptobranchus maximus, which has since been found to inhabit China also; the third is the hellbender, mud-puppy or water-dog of North America,C. alleghaniensis, also known under the name ofMenopoma. Both the fossilC. scheuchzeriandC. maximusgrow to a length of over 5 ft. and are by far the largest Urodeles known, whilstC. alleghaniensisreaches the respectable length of 18 in.
The eggs are laid in rosary-like strings. They have been found, in Japan, deposited in deep holes in the water, where they form large clumps (70 to 80 eggs) round which the female coils herself. The gigantic salamander has also bred in the Amsterdam zoological gardens, the eggs numbering upwards of 500; the male, it is stated, took charge of the eggs, and for theten weeks which elapsed before the release of the last larva, he kept close to them, at times crawling among the coiled mass of egg-strings or lifting them up, evidently for the purpose of aeration. The larva on leaving the egg is about an inch long, provided with three branched external gills on each side, and showing mere rudiments of the four limbs.
CRYPTOGRAPHY(from Gr.κρύπτος, hidden, andγράφειν, to write), or writing in cipher, called also steganography (from Gr.στεγάνη, a covering), the art of writing in such a way as to be incomprehensible except to those who possess the key to the system employed. The unravelling of the writing is called deciphering. Cryptography having become a distinct art, Bacon (Lord Verulam) classed it (under the nameciphers) as a part of grammar. Secret modes of communication have been in use from the earliest times. The Lacedemonians had a method called thescytale, from the staff (σκυτάλη) employed in constructing and deciphering the message. When the Spartan ephors wished to forward their orders to their commanders abroad, they wound slantwise a narrow strip of parchment upon theσκυτάληso that the edges met close together, and the message was then added in such a way that the centre of the line of writing was on the edges of the parchment. When unwound the scroll consisted of broken letters; and in that condition it was despatched to its destination, the general to whose hands it came deciphering it by means of aσκυτάληexactly corresponding to that used by the ephors. Polybius has enumerated other methods of cryptography.
The art was in use also amongst the Romans. Upon the revival of letters methods of secret correspondence were introduced into private business, diplomacy, plots, &c.; and as the study of this art has always presented attractions to the ingenious, a curious body of literature has been the result.
John Trithemius (d. 1516), the abbot of Spanheim, was the first important writer on cryptography. HisPolygraphia, published in 1518, has passed through many editions, and has supplied the basis upon which subsequent writers have worked. It was begun at the desire of the duke of Bavaria; but Trithemius did not at first intend to publish it, on the ground that it would be injurious to public interests. ASteganographiapublished at Lyons (? 1551) and later at Frankfort (1606), is also attributed to him. The next treatises of importance were those of Giovanni Battista della Porta, the Neapolitan mathematician, who wroteDe furtivis litterarum notis, 1563; and of Blaise de Vigenere, whoseTraité des chiffresappeared in Paris, 1587. Bacon proposed an ingenious system of cryptography on the plan of what is called the double cipher; but while thus lending to the art the influence of his great name, he gave an intimation as to the general opinion formed of it and as to the classes of men who used it. For when prosecuting the earl of Somerset in the matter of the poisoning of Overbury, he urged it as an aggravation of the crime that the earl and Overbury “had cyphers and jargons for the king and queen and all the great men,—things seldom used but either by princes and their ambassadors and ministers, or by such as work or practise against or, at least, upon princes.”
Other eminent Englishmen were afterwards connected with the art. John Wilkins, subsequently bishop of Chester, published in 1641 an anonymous treatise entitledMercury, or The Secret and Swift Messenger,—a small but comprehensive work on the subject, and a timely gift to the diplomatists and leaders of the Civil War. The deciphering of many of the royalist papers of that period, such as the letters that fell into the hands of the parliament at the battle of Naseby, has by Henry Stubbe been charged on the celebrated mathematician Dr John Wallis (Athen. Oxon.iii. 1072), whose connexion with the subject of cipher-writing is referred to by himself in the Oxford edition of his mathematical works, 1689, p. 659; as also by John Davys. Dr Wallis elsewhere states that this art, formerly scarcely known to any but the secretaries of princes, &c., had grown very common and familiar during the civil commotions, “so that now there is scarce a person of quality but is more or less acquainted with it, and doth, as there is occasion, make use of it.” Subsequent writers on the subject are John Falconer (Cryptomenysis patefacta), 1685; John Davys (An Essay on the Art of Decyphering: in which is inserted a Discourse of Dr Wallis), 1737; Philip Thicknesse (A Treatise on the Art of Decyphering and of Writing in Cypher), 1772; William Blair (the writer of the comprehensive article “Cipher” in Rees’sCyclopaedia), 1819; and G. von Marten (Coursdiplomatique), 1801 (a fourth edition of which appeared in 1851). Perhaps the best modern work on this subject is theKryptographikof J. L. Klüber (Tübingen, 1809), who was drawn into the investigation by inclination and official circumstances. In this work the different methods of cryptography are classified. Amongst others of lesser merit who have treated of this art may be named Gustavus Selenus (i.e.Augustus, duke of Brunswick), 1624; Cospi, translated by Niceron in 1641; the marquis of Worchester, 1659; Kircher, 1663; Schott, 1665; Ludwig Heinrich Hiller, 1682; Comiers; 1690; Baring, 1737; Conrad, 1739, &c. See also a paper onElizabethan Cipher-booksby A. J. Butler in the Bibliographical Society’sTransactions, London, 1901.
Schemes of cryptography are endless in their variety. Bacon lays down the following as the “virtues” to be looked for in them:—“that they be not laborious to write and read; that they be impossible to decipher; and, in some cases, that they be without suspicion.” These principles are more or less disregarded by all the modes that have been advanced, including that of Bacon himself, which has been unduly extolled by his admirers as “one of the most ingenious methods of writing in cypher, and the most difficult to be decyphered, of any yet contrived” (Thicknesse, p. 13).
The simplest and commonest of all the ciphers is that in which the writer selects in place of the proper letters certain other letters in regular advance. This method of transposition was used by Julius Caesar. He, “per quartam elementorum literam,” wrotedfora,eforb, and so on. There are instances of this arrangement in the Jewish rabbis, and even in the sacred writers. An illustration of it occurs in Jeremiah (xxv. 26), where the prophet, to conceal the meaning of his prediction from all but the initiated, writesSheshakinstead of Babel (Babylon), the place meant;i.e.in place of using the second and twelfth letters of the Hebrew alphabet (b,b,l) from the beginning, he wrote the second and twelfth (sh,sh,k) from the end. To this kind of cipher-writing Buxtorf gives the name Athbash (fromathe first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, andththe last;bthe second from the beginning, andhthe second from the end). Another Jewish cabalism of like nature was called Albam; of which an example is in Isaiah vii. 6, where Tabeal is written for Remaliah. In its adaptation to English this method of transposition, of which there are many modifications, is comparatively easy to decipher. A rough key may be derived from an examination of the respective quantities of letters in a type-founder’s bill, or a printer’s “case.” The decipherer’s first business is to classify the letters of the secret message in the order of their frequency. The letter that occurs oftenest ise; and the next in order of frequency ist. The following groups come after these, separated from each other by degrees of decreasing recurrence:—a,o,n,i;r,s,h;d,l;c,w,u,m;f,y,g,p,b;v,k;x,q,j,z. All the single letters must bea,IorO. Letters occurring together areee,oo,ff,ll,ss, &c. The commonest words of two letters are (roughly arranged in the order of their frequency)of,to,in,it,is,be,he,by,or,as,at,an,so, &c. The commonest words of three letters aretheandand(in great excess),for,are,but,all,not, &c.; and of four letters—that,with,from,have,this,they, &c. Familiarity with the composition of the language will suggest numerous other points that are of value to the decipherer. He may obtain other hints from Poe’s tale calledThe Gold Bug. As to messages in the continental languages constructed upon this system of transposition, rules for deciphering may be derived from Breithaupt’sArs decifratoria(1737), and other treatises.
Bacon remarks that though ciphers were commonly in letters and alphabets yet they might be in words. Upon this basis codes have been constructed, classified words taken from dictionaries being made to represent complete ideas. In recentyears such codes have been adapted by merchants and others to communications by telegraph, and have served the purpose not only of keeping business affairs private, but also of reducing the excessive cost of telegraphic messages to distant markets. Obviously this class of ciphers presents greater difficulties to the skill of the decipherer.
Figures and other characters have been also used as letters; and with them ranges of numerals have been combined as the representatives of syllables, parts of words, words themselves, and complete phrases. Under this head must be placed the despatches of Giovanni Michael, the Venetian ambassador to England in the reign of Queen Mary, documents which have only of late years been deciphered. Many of the private letters and papers from the pen of Charles I. and his queen, who were adepts in the use of ciphers, are of the same description. One of that monarch’s letters, a document of considerable interest, consisting entirely of numerals purposely complicated, was in 1858 deciphered by Professor Wheatstone, the inventor of the ingenious crypto-machine, and printed by the Philobiblon Society. Other letters of the like character have been published in theFirst Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts(1870). In the second and subsequent reports of the same commission several keys to ciphers have been catalogued, which seem to refer themselves to the methods of cryptography under notice. In this connexion also should be mentioned the “characters,” which the diarist Pepys drew up when clerk to Sir George Downing and secretary to the earl of Sandwich and to the admiralty, and which are frequently mentioned in his journal. Pepys describes one of them as “a great large character,” over which he spent much time, but which was at length finished, 25th April 1660; “it being,” says he, “very handsomely done and a very good one in itself, but that not truly alphabetical.”
Shorthand marks and other arbitrary characters have also been largely imported into cryptographic systems to represent both letters and words, but more commonly the latter. This plan is said to have been first put into use by the old Roman poet Ennius. It formed the basis of the method of Cicero’s freedman, Tiro, who seems to have systematized the labours of his predecessors. A large quantity of these characters have been engraved in Gruter’sInscriptiones. The correspondence of Charlemagne was in part made up of marks of this nature. In Rees’sCyclopaediaspecimens were engraved of the cipher used by Cardinal Wolsey at the court of Vienna in 1524, of that used by Sir Thomas Smith at Paris in 1563, and of that of Sir Edward Stafford in 1586; in all of which arbitrary marks are introduced. The first English system of shorthand—Bright’sCharacterie, 1588—almost belongs to the same category of ciphers. A favourite system of Charles I., used by him during the year 1646, was one made up of an alphabet of twenty-four letters, which were represented by four simple strokes varied in length, slope and position. This alphabet is engraved in Clive’sLinear System of Shorthand(1830), having been found amongst the royal manuscripts in the British Museum. An interest attaches to this cipher from the fact that it was employed in the well-known letter addressed by the king to the earl of Glamorgan, in which the former made concessions to the Roman Catholics of Ireland.
Complications have been introduced into ciphers by the employment of “dummy” letters,—“nulls and insignificants,” as Bacon terms them. Other devices have been introduced to perplex the decipherer, such as spelling words backwards, making false divisions between words, &c. The greatest security against the decipherer has been found in the use of elaborate tables of letters, arranged in the form of the multiplication table, the message being constructed by the aid of preconcerted key-words. Details of the working of these ciphers may be found in the treatises named in this article. The deciphering of them is one of the most difficult of tasks. A method of this kind is explained in the Latin and English lives of Dr John Barwick, whose correspondence with Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, was carried on in cryptography. In a letter dated 20th February 1659/60, Hyde, alluding to the skill of his political opponents in deciphering, says that “nobody needs to fear them, if they write carefully in good cyphers.” In his next he allays his correspondent’s apprehensiveness as to the deciphering of their letters.
“I confess to you, as I am sure no copy could be gotten of any of my cyphers from hence, so I did not think it probable that they could be got on your side the water. But I was as confident, till you tell me you believe it, that the devil himself cannot decypher a letter that is well written, or find that 100 stands for Sir H. Vane. I have heard of many of the pretenders to that skill, and have spoken with some of them, but have found them all to be mountebanks; nor did I ever hear that more of the King’s letters that were found at Naseby, than those which they found decyphered, or found the cyphers in which they were writ, were decyphered. And I very well remember that in the volume they published there was much left in cypher which could not be understood, and which I believe they would have explained if it had been in their power.”
“I confess to you, as I am sure no copy could be gotten of any of my cyphers from hence, so I did not think it probable that they could be got on your side the water. But I was as confident, till you tell me you believe it, that the devil himself cannot decypher a letter that is well written, or find that 100 stands for Sir H. Vane. I have heard of many of the pretenders to that skill, and have spoken with some of them, but have found them all to be mountebanks; nor did I ever hear that more of the King’s letters that were found at Naseby, than those which they found decyphered, or found the cyphers in which they were writ, were decyphered. And I very well remember that in the volume they published there was much left in cypher which could not be understood, and which I believe they would have explained if it had been in their power.”
An excellent modification of the key-word principle was constructed by Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort.
Ciphers have been constructed on the principle of altering the places of the letters without changing their powers. The message is first written Chinese-wise, upward and downward, and the letters are then combined in given rows from left to right. In the celebrated cipher used by the earl of Argyll when plotting against James II., he altered the positions of the words. Sentences of an indifferent nature were constructed, but the real meaning of the message was to be gathered from words, placed at certain intervals. This method, which is connected with the name of Cardan, is sometimes called the trellis or cardboard cipher.
The wheel-cipher, which is an Italian invention, the string-cipher, the circle-cipher and many others are fully explained, with the necessary diagrams, in the authorities named above—more particularly by Klüber in hisKryptographik.
(J. E. B.)
CRYPTOMERIA,orJapanese Cedar, a genus of conifers, containing a single species,C. japonica, native of China and Japan, which was introduced into Great Britain by the Royal Horticultural Society in 1844. It is described as one of the finest trees in Japan, reaching a height of 100 or more feet, usually divested of branches along the lower part of the trunk and crowned with a conical head. The narrow, pointed leaves are spirally arranged and persist for four or five years; the cones are small, globose and borne at the ends of the branchlets, the scales are thickened at the extremity and divided into sharply pointed lobes, three to five seeds are borne on each scale.Cryptomeriais extensively used in Japan for reafforesting denuded lands, as it is a valuable timber tree; it is also planted to form avenues along the public roads. In Veitch’sManual of Coniferae(ed. 2, 1900, p. 265) reference is made to “an avenue of Cryptomerias 7 m. in extent near Lake Hakone” in which “the trees are more than 100 ft. high, with perfectly straight trunks crowned with conical heads of foliage.” Professor C. S. Sargent, in hisForest Flora of Japan, says, “Japan owes much of the beauty of its groves and gardens to theCryptomeria. Nowhere is there a more solemn and impressive group of trees than that which surrounds the temples and tombs at Nikko where they rise to a height of 100 to 125 ft.; it is a stately tree with no rival except in the sequoias of California.” Many curious varieties have been obtained by Japanese horticulturists, including some dwarf shrubby forms not exceeding a few feet in height. When grown in Great BritainCryptomeriarequires a deep, well-drained soil with plenty of moisture, and protection from cold winds.
CRYPTO-PORTICUS(Gr.κρυπτός, concealed, and Lat.porticus), an architectural term for a concealed or covered passage, generally underground, though lighted and ventilated from the open air. One of the best-known examples is the crypto-porticus under the palaces of the Caesars in Rome. In Hadrian’s villa in Rome they formed the principal private intercommunication between the several buildings.
CRYSTAL-GAZING,orScrying, the term commonly applied to the induction of visual hallucinations by concentrating the gaze on any clear deep, such as a crystal or a ball of polished rock crystal. Some persons do not even find a clear deep necessary, and are content to gaze at the palm of the hand, for example, when hallucinatory pictures, as they declare, emerge.Among objects used are a pool of ink in the hand (Egypt), the liver of an animal (tribes of the North-West Indian frontier), a hole filled with water (Polynesia), quartz crystals (the Apaches and the Euahlayi tribe of New South Wales), a smooth slab of polished black stone (the Huille-che of South America), water in a vessel (Zulus and Siberians), a crystal (the Incas), a mirror (classical Greece and the middle ages), the finger-nail, a sword-blade, a ring-stone, a glass of sherry, in fact almost anything. Much depends on what the “seer” is accustomed to use, and some persons who can “scry” in a glass ball or a glass water-bottle cannot “scry” in ink.
The practice of inducing pictorial hallucinations by such methods as these has been traced among the natives of North and South America, Asia, Australia, Africa, among the Maoris, who sometimes use a drop of blood, and in Polynesia, and is thus practically of world-wide diffusion. This fact was not observed (that is, the collections of examples were not made) till recently, when experiments in private non-spiritualist circles drew attention to crystal-gazing, a practice always popular among peasants, and known historically to have survived through classical and medieval times, and, as in the famous case of Dr Dee, after the Reformation.
The early church condemnedspecularii(mirror-gazers), and Aubrey and theMemoirsof Saint-Simon contain “scrying” anecdotes of the 17th and 18th centuries, while Sir Walter Scott’s story,My Aunt Margaret’s Mirror, is based on a tradition of about 1750 in a noble Scottish family. The practice, in all times and countries, was used for purposes of divination. The gazer detected unknown criminals, or described remote events, or even professed to foretell things future. Sometimes the supposed magician or medicine man himself did the scrying; occasionally he enabled his client to see for himself; often a child was selected as the scryer. The process was usually explained as the result of the action of a spirit, angel or devil, and many unessential formulae, invocations, “calls,” written charms with cabbalistic signs, and fumigations, were employed. These things may have had some effect by way of suggestion; the scryer may have been brought by them into an appropriate frame of mind; but, as a whole, they are tedious and superfluous.
A person can either induce the pictorial hallucinations (he may discover his capacity by accident, like George Sand, as she tells in herMemoirs—and other cases are known), or he cannot induce them, though he stare till his eyes water. It is almost universally found, in cases of successful experiment, that the glass ball, for example, takes a milky or misty aspect, that it then grows black, reflections disappearing, and that then the pictures emerge. Some people arrive at seeing the glass ball milky or misty, and can go no further. Others see pictures of persons or landscapes, only in black and white, and motionless. Others see in the glass coloured figures of men, women and animals in motion; while in rarer cases the ball disappears from view, and the scryer finds himself apparently looking at an actual scene. In a few attested cases two persons have shared the same vision. In experiments with magnifying glasses, and through spars, the ordinary effects of magnifying and of alteration of view are sometimes produced; sometimes they are not. The evidence, of course, is necessarily only that of the scryers themselves, but repeated experiments by persons of probity, and unfamiliar with the topic, combined with the world-wide existence of the practice, prove that hallucinatory pictures are really induced.
It has not been found possible to determine, before experiment, whether any given man or woman will prove capable of the hallucinatory experiences. Many subjects with strong powers of “visualization,” or seeing things “in the mind’s eye,” cannot scry; others are successful in various degrees. We might expect persons who have experienced spontaneous visual hallucinations, of the kind vulgarly styled “ghosts” or “wraiths,” to succeed in inducing pictures in a glass ball. As a matter of fact such persons sometimes can and sometimes cannot see pictures in the way of crystal-gazing; while many who can see in the crystal have had no spontaneous hallucinations. It is useless to make experiments with hysterical and visionary people, “whose word no man relies on”; they may have the hallucinatory experiences, but they would say that they had in any case.
The nearest analogy to crystal visions, as described, is the common experience of “hypnagogic illusions” (cf. Alfred Maury.Les Rêves et le sommeil). With closed eyes, between sleeping and waking, many people see faces, landscapes and other things flash upon their view, pictures often brilliant, but of very brief duration and rapid mutation. Sometimes the subject opens his eyes to get rid of an unpleasant vision of this kind. People who cannot scry may have these hypnagogic illusions, and, so far, may partly understand the experience of the scryer who is wide awake. But the visions of the scryer often endure for a considerable time. He or she may put the glass down and converse, and may find the picture still there when the ball is taken up again. New figures may join the figure first seen, as when one enters a room. In these respects, and in the awakeness of the scryer, crystal pictures differ from hypnagogic illusions. In other ways the experiences coincide, the pictures are either fanciful, like illustrations of some unread history or romance, or are revivals of remembered places and faces.
Occasionally, in hypnagogic illusions, the observer can see the picture develop rapidly out of a blot of light or colour, beheld by the closed eyes. One or two scryers think that they, too, can trace the picture as it develops on the suggestion of some passage of light, colour or shadow in the glass or crystal. But, as a rule, the scryer cannot detect any process of development from suchpoints de mire; though this may be the actual process.
On the whole there seems little doubt that successful crystal-gazing is the exertion of a not uncommon though far from universal faculty, like those of “chromatic audition”—the vivid association of certain sounds with certain colours—and the mental seeing of figures arranged in coloured diagrams (Galton,Inquiry into Human Faculty, pp. 114-154). The experience of hypnagogic illusions also seems far more rare than ordinary dreaming in sleep. Unfortunately, while these phenomena have been carefully studied by officially scientific characters, in England orthodoxsavantshave disdained to observe crystal-gazing, while in France psychologists have too commonly experimented with subjects professionally hysterical and quite untrustworthy. Our remarks are therefore based mainly on considerable personal study of “scrying” among normal British subjects of both sexes, to whom the topic was previously unknown.
The superstitious associations of crystal-gazing, as of hypnotism, appear to bar the way to official scientific investigation, and the fluctuating proficiency of the seers, who cannot command success, or determine the causes and conditions of success and failure, tends in the same direction. The existence, too, of paid professionals who lead astray silly women, encourages the natural scientific contempt for the study of the faculty.
The seeing of the pictures, as far as we have spoken of it, appears to be a thing unusual, but in no way abnormal, any more than dreams or hypnagogic illusions are abnormal. Crystal pictures, however, are commonly dismissed as mere results of “imagination,” a theory which, of course, is of no real assistance to psychology. Persons of recognized “imaginativeness,” such as novelists and artists, do not seem more or less capable of the hallucinatory experiences than their sober neighbours; while persons not otherwise recognizably “imaginative” (we could quote a singularly accurate historian) are capable of the experiences. It is unfortunate, as it awakens prejudice, but in the present writer’s opinion it is true, that crystal-gazing sometimes is rewarded with results which may be styled “supra-normal.” In addition to the presentation of revived memories, and of “objectivation of ideas or images consciously or unconsciously in the mind of the percipient,” there occur “visions, possibly telepathic or clairvoyant, implying acquirement of knowledge by supra-normal means.”1
A number of examples occurring during experiments made by the present writer and by his acquaintances in 1897 were carefully recorded and attested by the signatures of all concernedThe cases, or rather a selection of the cases, are printed in A. Lang’s book,The Making of Religion(2nd ed., London, 1902, pp. 87-104). Others are chronicled in A. Lang’s Introduction to Mr N. W. Thomas’s work,Crystal Gazing(1905). The experiments took this form: any person might ask the scryer (a lady who had never previously heard of crystal-gazing) “to see what he was thinking of.” The scryer, who was a stranger in a place which she had not visited before, gave, in a long series of cases, a description of the person or place on which the inquirer’s thoughts were fixed. The descriptions, though three or four entire failures occurred, were of remarkable accuracy as a rule, and contained facts and incidents unknown to the inquirers, but confirmed as accurate. In fact, some Oriental scenes and descriptions of incidents were corroborated by a letter from India which arrived just after the experiment; and the same thing happened when the events described were occurring in places less remote. On one occasion a curious set of incidents were described, which happened to be vividly present to the mind of a sceptical stranger who chanced to be in the room during the experiment; events unknown to the inquirer in this instance. As an example of the minuteness of description, an inquirer, thinking of a brother in India, an officer in the army, whose hair had suffered in an encounter with a tiger, had described to her an officer in undress uniform, with bald scars through the hair on his temples, such as he really bore. The number and proportion of successes was too high to admit of explanation by chance coincidence, but success was not invariable. On one occasion the scryer could see nothing, “the crystal preserved its natural diaphaneity,” as Dr Dee says; and there were failures with two or three inquirers. On the other hand no record was kept in several cases of success.
Whoever can believe that the successes were numerous and that descriptions were given correctly—not only of facts present to the minds of inquirers, and of other persons present who were not consciously taking a share in the experiments, but also of facts necessarily unknown to all concerned—must of course be most impressed by the latter kind of success. If the process commonly styled “telepathy” exists (seeTelepathy), that may account for the scryer’s power of seeing facts which are in the mind of the inquirer. But when the scryers see details of various sorts, which are unknown to the inquirer, but are verified on inquiry, then telepathy perhaps fails to provide an explanation. We seem to be confronted with actual clairvoyance (q.v.), orvue à distance. It would be vain to form hypotheses as to the conditions or faculties which makevue à distancepossible. This way lie metaphysics, with Hegel’s theory of the Sensitive Soul, or Myers’ theory of the Subliminal Self. “The intuitive soul,” says Hegel, “oversteps the conditions of time and space; it beholds things remote, things long past, and things to come.”2
What we need, if any progress is to be made in knowledge of the subject, is not a metaphysical hypothesis, but a large, carefully tested, and well-recorded collection of examples, made bysavantsof recognized standing. At present we are where we were in electrical science, when Newton produced curious sparks while rubbing glass with paper. By way of facts, we have only a large body of unattested anecdotes of supra-normal successes in crystal-gazing, in many lands and ages; and the scanty records of modern amateur investigators, like the present writer. Even from these, if the honesty of all concerned be granted (and even clever dishonesty could not have produced many of the results), it would appear that we are investigating a strange and important human faculty. The writer is acquainted with no experiments in which it was attempted to discern the future (except in trivial cases as to events on the turf, when chance coincidence might explain the successes), and only with two or three cases in which there was an attempt to help historical science and discern the past by aid of psychical methods. The results were interesting and difficult to explain, but the experiments were few. Ordinary scryers of fancy pictures are common enough, but scryers capable of apparently supra-normal successes are apparently rare. Perhaps something depends on the inquirer as well as the scryer.
The method of scrying, as generally practised, is simple. It is usual to place a glass ball on a dark ground, to sit with the back to the light, to focus the gaze on the ball (disregarding reflections, if these cannot be excluded), and to await results. Perhaps from five to ten minutes is a long enough time for the experiment. The scryer may let his consciousness play freely, but should not be disturbed by lookers-on. As a rule, if a person has the faculty he “sees” at the first attempt; if he fails in the first three or four efforts he need not persevere. Solitude is advisable at first, but few people can find time amounting to ten minutes for solitary studies of this sort, so busy and so gregarious is mankind. The writer has no experience of trance, sleep or auto-hypnotization produced in such experiments; scryers have always seemed to retain their full normal consciousness. As regards scepticism concerning the faculty we may quote what Mr Galton says about the faculty of visualization: “Scientific men as a class have feeble power of visual reproduction.... They had a mental deficiency of which they were unconscious, and, naturally enough, supposed that those who affirmedtheywere possessed of it were romancing.”