The next task before us was to make it give raps with its different legs. We began with those fastened to one half of the top, three in number. They rose from the floor two at a time with such force that at the end of a moment one of the casters flew to pieces.[53] Now it is difficult to form an idea of the intensity which a fraudulent action of the fingers must have acquired in order to exercise a leverage upon so heavy a table, and launch it into the air to such a height.
There remained the leg of the table which was independent of the top. We thought it would obey as well as the others. But no! In vain did we pour out the most prodigal and pressing invitations: it was never willing to rise, either along with its right-hand neighbor or with its neighbor on the left. Our next thought was that this was due to the persons placed near it, and certain members of the chain changed seats. In vain! All combinations failed one after another.
We drew great deductions from this circumstance. But since it was refuted later, when the contumacious leg yielded perfect obedience at another meeting, I will not take the public into our confidence by a display of our reasonings on the subject. I will only ask that two things be noted; first, the care we took to verify many times the phenomena before affirming them; and, second, that we have here once more a fine refutation of the critics who assert that muscular action can explain everything. If this were so, why did not muscular action lift the free leg as well as those fastened tight to the table? It could have done so just as easily; and yet for some _unknown reason_, but one evidently _foreign to the laws of mechanics_, only the attached legs consented to move.
We were in full muster; but two or three of the operators were slightly indisposed. On the whole, whatever was the cause, the occasion was scarcely remarkable for anything except the almost total absence of fluidic power. For a single moment we had a little of it. A half-hour of action and two hours and a half of inertia--this was our net result.
Nothing was more lamentable, and at the same time more curious, than to see us about the different tables, passing from one to another, enjoining them to do the most elementary things, and only obtaining a weak and languid rotation, which soon stopped altogether.