Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/721

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EDITOR'S TABLE.
701

be taken to represent my husband's personal observations as to the extent and limits of the several glaciated areas, as it bears little or no resemblance to the records which he has left of them"; and she proceeds to point out some of the points of difference, particularly in Ireland.

The map does not profess to be that of Prof. Lewis, but represents the work as completed in England by Prof. Kendall. Very likely it is imperfect in Ireland, but it gives the general facts as well as could be done before Prof. Lewis's notes are published.

We are pleased to learn from Mrs. Lewis's letter that the manuscript of her husband's book has gone to press.—Editor.


HABITS OF POGONIA OPHIOGLOSSOIDES.

Editor Popular Science Monthy:

Sir: In reading the very interesting article in your November number, Color in Flowering Plants, I am at a loss to understand the author's description of the orchid Pogonia ophioglossoides.

She says, "There is no other pogonia . . . which has its leaves whorled on the stem," and speaks of its "greatly elongated sepals and three-parted corolla—all green" etc. She also describes it as growing in the same places as the "much more abundant Indian cucumber," and as resembling it much more closely than allied orchids. It grows quite abundantly in Nantucket, but I have never found it there with whorled leaves, green flower, or growing with the medeola.

On the contrary, its single leaf, growing midway on the slender stem, first attracted my attention as distinguishing it from the Calopogon, of which, at first glance, I took it to be a faded specimen. I have frequently found them growing together, and have mistaken one for the other.

Gray's Manual describes exactly the species I have found as Pogonia ophioglossoides, so I can not think it a "form" peculiar to Nantucket. I am, therefore, considerably puzzled to account for the discrepancies, and should be glad to be enlightened.

Mabel P. Robinson.
El Mora, N. J., October 28, 1892.


EDITOR'S TABLE.

THE EVERLASTING GHOST.

THE believers in ghosts are just now jubilant over some anticipated revelations to be made through the medium of photography. In a recent number of the Fortnightly Review the Rev. H. A. Haweis has a long article under the title of Ghosts and their Photos. He introduces the subject by a historical survey, intended to show the inextinguishable character of the ghost. Ancient history certainly does furnish a vast amount of grist for the spiritualist mill, and the Rev. Mr. Haweis lays hold of it all. The angels that appeared to Jacob were real ghosts; the prophets were mediums; Elijah was in very truth "levitated"; so also was Philip the evangelist; so also was Francis of Assisi; the "tongues" at Corinth and the tongues among the Irvingites bespoke real possession, not mere disorder of the brain; the saints did actually come out of their graves at Jerusalem and still more or less keep up the practice. All these things, and a thousand more, added to "the raps, the lights, and the materializations" of the modern séance, compose, in the opinion of the reverend gentleman, such a mass of evidence in favor of ghost activity in connection with human affairs that to doubt any longer becomes a little ridiculous. We fear the stigma is one which must continue to attach to ourselves for a little while longer, at any rate. Our obstinate incredulity is not shaken even by the statement, given on the authority of the Psychological Society, that out of seven thousand sane persons one woman in twelve and one man in ten had had "experiences of an-occult character." We are simply moved to congratulate the gentler sex on their appreciably more restricted conversance with the works of darkness—for we suppose the term can not be altogether inapplicable to "experiences of an occult character." It may curdle the blood of some to read that "you can visit no part of