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THE RESULT OF THE VITAL ENERGY OF PLANTS

A NEW, TRULY GREAT DISCOVERY

ALBERT ALBERQ,

AUTHOR OP

"The FiiORAii King, a Life of Linn^us,"

" Fabled Stories from the Zoo,"

'GusTAvus Vasa and His Stirring Times,"

'Charles XII and His Stirring Times," Etc.

Cbicago:

jFraternal printing Co.

1899.

430.38.}

MAY 24- II

The spell of severe winter, January and February, '99, opened my eyes for the study of a branch of nature hitherto almost entirely neglected. As it may be of some use in opening up a new field, and is of most interesting and fascinating nature, I will make a minute record of it.

It came about in this way: I was frequently taking my meals at a German restaurant, southeast corner of Sixty- first and State streets, Chicago, where I had observed some ferns in the front window, and on Sunday January 29, '99, I observed that their contours were faithfully delineated on an enlarged and elongated scale on the frosted front- window pane, and that also an evidently dry specimen of a geranium in the left corner was clearly depicted. Then I observed that on each of the five dining tables, placed in front of the four side windows, were glasses, or tumblers, containing each a stalk or two of celery, and to my utter astonishment, that at the bottom of each of these plate- glass windows were most vividly depicted stalks of celery with sprigs and leaves, and that each of these ice-portrai- tures or ice photographs was exceedingly thick, quite bas- relief, in complete accordance with the pulpy celery stems, the majority of which, please observe, had already been eaten, and thus only left as a reminiscence of themselves these frosty tracings on the windows, as those remaining in the tumblers were only thin and small and without scarcely any leaves, mere tufts being suffered to remain, in fact, the rejected ones left over from the dinner. I drew the attention of my companion and of the two waitresses

(one being the daughter of the proprietor ) to the phenom- enon, and we were all highly interested and amazed.

I have since continued my espionage into this secret branch of nature, as I shall further relate, but only in cel- ery have I found the extraordinary vital force displayed in such an amazing capacity as to form its counterpart in quite thick or heavy bas-relief, which conclusively proves that there is no other plant endowed with such an extraor- dinary powerful vitality, and must, therefore, truthfully bear out the assertions of its life and energy bestowing power. Make the experiment and judge for yourself.

Enticed by this glimpse into the secrets of nature I began a pilgrimage in more down town situated districts and also on the north side, and everywhere I have found that these tracings are no freaks of "Jack Frost," but are the result of a perfectly-arranged system of nature— as how else could it be? ~ And I have endeavored to classify them as follows, which everyone can compare and verify for himself as I have done over and over again.

My next observation was in the kitchen of a friend, where I told his family that they had had cabbage for dinner. "Yes, yesterday. How do you know? Do you smell it still?" "No, but I see it on the windows. There you see the cabbage leaves quite plainly." And so they did. My friend, who is of a very investigating turn of mind (being an eager spiritualist), next drew my attention to two large windows on a saloon on the northwest corner of Thirty-tirst and Dearborn streets, nearly opposite, and her^ a most gorgeous display of tropical plants, interlaced with feathery tracings, presented itself. It lasted several days— as long as the intense cold did. Later on I saw its equal only at a large saloon, corner of North Clark and Superior streets. On numerous other saloon windows were

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somewhat similar tropical displays, although none so beautiful as particularly on saloons where they sell Swedish punch, the favorite intoxicating drink of that nationality, which is made from arrack, distilled from cocoanut, rice and sugar cane, which the Swedes import from the West Indies, and which may thus explain the tropical display caused by the effluvium thereof. Sometimes in adulter- ated state made from the saccharine of common licorice,

I have always thought the name of "sample room" being an idiotic name for these places, but I verily acknowledge its appropriateness, for these frosty tracings evidently displayed samples of the various mysterious dis- tilled ingredients which had been uncorked at the bar, and with which the air was surcharged, impressing their still extant vitality on the moist plate glass.

The fancy bakeries and drug stores alone vie with the saloons in their display, although not quite so gorgeous nor so diversified.

The vital force of plants, as of everything else, is invis- ible and imponderable and impalpable, and can therefore not be annihilated, but in this instance makes its effect visible in the icy tracings. I would feel inclined to hold with the theosophists that it is the astral body or vital force of the plant thus becoming visible, but I will defer that opinion until later on, when further experiments, cited in this paper, may enable me to make such a startling assertion. But the all-pervading soul of the universe must perforce permeate every plant as well.

Three tobacconists, and saloons with their tobacco counters near the window, furnished a few tobacco leaves in ice tracings, of which, however, none seemed complete, but were cut in halves or thirds of the leaves in their entirety.

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l^ext I took stock of the window of a Greek fruit dealer on Thirty-tirst street, and in company with another companion was much delighted to find ice tracings of various kinds of fruit foliage and of two distinct pine- apples on their stems. A candy store near by presented a curious, very long, prickly, tapering stem, but otherwise only enlarged crystals, thrown higgledly-piggledly about —emanations of sugar, no doubt. On a small restaurant window were thrown pell-mell enlarged specimens of vari- ous cereals. This I have afterward found generally to be the case on restaurant windows, as well as on those of baker shops, private dining rooms, living rooms and bed rooms, but like at the tobacconists these cereals or leaves are never complete, but like chopped off.

In a small Swedish restaurant, 3205 Wentworth ave. , I observed a curious thing. The usual display of cereals and vegetables were observable on the heavily frosted windows. The little desk where the cash was received was, contrary to custom, placed near the low side window of the inner dining room. There I saw some vegetable leaves, but also a perpendicular strip about eighteeh inches long and two inches wide, of the exact reproduction of ^ lace, such as waiting-maids occasionally display on their coquettish aprons, the same pattern being continuous all through and particularly heavy, as if crochet work, ice delineation of cotton or worsted. I asked the girl if she had had such an apron on, and she replied: "Yes, yesterday." She, like the others present, of course only laughed at these curious freaks of "Jack Frost." But there will be others whom these discoveries will set prying into the secrets of nature and who will be prone to clasp their hands, even when trembling with cold, in adoration of the Creator and

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His wondrous ways, as displayed in ice tracings or palen- genesis.

Next day I inspected several windows of dry goods merchants, but found nothing, except where woolen stuffs were exposed, when they generally displayed grass and foliage, plainly such large herbage as Australian sheep graze on, the large windows at Messrs. Griesheimer & Co., facing Lake street, corner of South Clark street, fur- nishing very fine specimens. Meat markets showed sim- ilar herbage tracings, although coarser and somewhat chopped off, and so did leather findings and even shoe stores.

A paint store window on Monroe street sampled vari- ous groups, or big splashes, of enlarged mineral crystalliza- tions, and so did a printer's ink store on Harrison street. But linen, or rather cotton shirt displays, seemingly pro- duced nothing anywhere but snow-flakes, moisture frozen from within in the regular way; nor stationery and period! cals exhibited for sale, for these latter were indeed the dead letter within, that require human intelligence to en- dow it with life.

Empty store windows and doors were devoid of icy tracings, there generally being no moisture within to fur- nish the drawing materials for "Jack Frost," and no plants or animals defunct, still endowed with particles of undying vitality, to supply the patterns.

Scarcely a day passed during this cold weather that did not add charming demonstrations of the frosty flowers left by the vital energy of plants. Thus on the night of February 9 I called upon a family at 3129 Wentworth ave., to see if the plants in their front parlor had made any ice portraitures. Being such cold weather they had shut off their front parlor a day or two previously, and removed

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all the plants into the warm dining room. The owner, who is an old gardener and feeling much interested, pro- posed that we should look into the bay window of the front parlor, where plants had stood; we did so, drew up the blinds, and were all much delighted to find the window panes full of very beautiful and magnified ice leaves, par- ticularly so the upper front pane of glass. This will be sure to be the case at innumerable other places where plants stand or have stood, so you had better look and judge for yourself. Their bed rooms had all large specimens of cereals, impressions of the wheat, or rye, that had passed through bodies, whether by breathing or exhalation.

The saloon, southeast corner of Sixtieth and State streets, was new papered on February 1. It being a very cold day the consequence was that at night the entire two large front windows were covered with an uncommonly thick layer of ice tracings of cereals, the effect of the paste used during the day. I drew the attention of the proprie- tor to it, who at once perceived the phenomenon of the powerful emanations of the cereals of which the paste was made, and as I was curious I called again the following afternoon, when we both observed that mostly everywhere the tracings of cereals lay in uniform layers, just as the paperhanger's brush had affixed the paste on the long paper strips, by strokes right and left, which, however, had been effected in the adjoining back room, but having once been transfixed on the back of the paper, now in the big bar room, to judge by appearance, had evidently trans- mitted by vibration its influence on the large window glass panes, perhaps accelerated by the paperhanger's brush when smoothing down the paper on wall and ceiling. In the smoke rooms ice tracings of tobacco leaves were plainly visible during several cold days.

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The windows of laundries and of barber shops seemed to have somewhat similar small patterns of frost, for which I could find no better explanation and term than frozen soap suds.

I found that large and fashionable stores or restau- rants were generally too well heated to allow ' 'Jack Frost' ' to draw any beautiful or interesting figures on their win- dows, the small and poorly heated stores furnishing by far the best examples.

Mrs. Charles Howard, 6558 Stewart ave., a very promi- nent lady theosophist of Chicago, who after having heard a portion of this paper read, looked in her own house to see if she might discover any sign of ice palingenesis and soon found an exemplar on a window pane, in front of which had chanced to be left a small jar of preserved grapes, in consequence of which a couple of large bunches of grapes had developed on the frosted window.

At the grocery southeast corner of Thirty-first street and Princeton ave., I again saw the phenomenon of the celery thick bas relief stalks and thin foliage.

Now compare all these and other various trades and occupations, and judge for yourself, always bearing in mind that the celery at your green grocer will furnish the finest specimens of undj^ing energy and that "Jack Frost" therefore seemingly most emphatically endorses celery as a conserver and restorer of vitality resuscitating in itself.

Nearly thirty years ago I resided at a large farm in Sweden, and I then often observed that our windows during severe cold became frosted with beautiful pictures of spruce firs, in long lines along the bottom of the window panes. My friends suggested that it was caused by the adjoining spruce fir forest, and so, no doubt, it was, but not by photographic reflections from without, but as ema-

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nations from within, for there was an intervening avenue of maple and elm, and stables and sheds, and large fields between the manor house and the forest, which was quite an English mile off, but we used spruce fir wood for fuel in our tall tile stoves, and it was the lingering, redolent air thereof, that still depicted these tiny images of its origin on the glass, these spruce fir tracings being on a diminutive scale, quite opposite to these various magnified specimens observed by me in Chicago, and which you can see for yourself anywhere when cold winter prevails.

"Where have my eyes been all this time!" you may verily exclaim.

And it is very curious to observe that while the tO' bacco leaves and cereals only show the ice figures of theii maimed forms, the celery plants on the contrary, plainly display the shape in its entirety, the stalk, the foliage, and if I mistake not, even partially the i;oot, although only the stalk, and very little of the foliage remained in front of the frosted windows, as in the instance at the German restaurant, first quoted in this paper. And regarding the appearance of spruce firs in entire, though diminutive shape, on the windows at the Swedish farm, of course there never had been in the room any but small pieces of spruce fir corded wood, and which had been consumed by fire, but whose presence had been capable of depicting spruce fir trees in their complete arbor ici beauty. These seemingly conflicting evidences and conditions will set any speculative philosopher a-thinking.

In 1888 I wrote a book, entitled: "The Floral King; a life of Linnaeus," published by W. H. Allen & Co., 13 -Waterloo Place, London, W., and I believe, incorporated in the library of the Linnsean Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W. On page 141 the great naturalist

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refers to the phenomenon of ice palingenesis already in 1761, as follows:

"I received a month ago, from the Councillor of Com- merce, the Honorary Herr Burgencrona, a quantity of tea plant seeds. I tried them in water, to see if they were sound, but found that they were decayed although the kernel appeared sound, which generally happens with the seeds of the tea plant. I poured water from the water jug into the hand basin in which the seeds lay, and macerated for eight entire days, the water became brown, the seeds were taken away and sown. This brown water remained another eight days, if not more. I found great pleasure in observing how the brown water separated itself from the clear water in the hand basin, and looked like a paint- ing of brown shrubs in the liquid water, and thought I saw here a species of palingenesis. At last the water froze in the cold room, and perfectly retained the figure which the tinged water had before, so that the ice lay in the hand basin like branches and leaves. The ice was about an inch thick, and between the branches the water had not formed the slightest ice. It is very strange that I have not seen anything similar. I showed it to Herr Adjunctus Melan- der and Magister Docens Bergman, who both viewed it with the same asthonishment. The ice figures, which show themselves on the windows, are flat, and filled up between the branches with ice. There have been those who have thought that this comes from vegetable exhala- tions, perhaps, after they have passed through the bodies of animals. It is noteworthy that the water which was in the water jug was also frozen, but as no tea plant seeds had been^soaked in it, it had frozen in the regular way, according to the laws of crystallization ad angulos, as salts

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are crystallized, for which reason Newton says that water is a liquid salt. * C. Linn^us. ' '

It will perhaps be necessary to explain what Linnseus means by Palingensis, and as it bears directly on the matter in question I will quote "Paracelsus," as re-capitulated by Dr. Franz Hartmann in his splendid work upon the writ- ings of that famous Swiss philosopher of 400 years ago, and published 1891 by the American Publishers Corporation, New York, page 346:

"Palingenesis. If a thing loses its material substance, the invisible form still remains in the light of nature (the astral light); if we can re-clothe that form with visible matter, we may make that form visible again. All matter is composed of three elements — sulphur, mercuiy and salt. By alchemical means we may create a magnetic attraction in the astral form, so that it may attract from the ele- ments (the A'kasa) those principles which it possessed be- fore its mortification, and incorporate them and become visible again. ( "De Resuscitationibus." Paracelsus. )

Note by Dr. Franz Hartmann: "Plato, Seneca, Eras- tus, Avicenna, Averroes, Albertus Magnus, Caspalin, Car- danus, Cornelius Agrippa, Eckartshausen, and many others wrote about the palingenesis of plants and animals. Ivircher resurrected a rose from its ashes in the presence of Queen Christina of Sweden, 1687. The astral body of an individual form remains with the remnant of the latter until these remnants have been fully decomposed, and by certain methods, known to the alchemist, it may be re- clothed with matter and become visible again."

Will that not hold good also with the human body? we may reasonably ask and explain and justify spiritism, if that, indeed, were needed, and furthermore advance the principle and practice of cremation, that the remimnt body

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may not too long be undergoing the process of decomposi- tion, and thus nullify "in that sleep of death what dreams may come." It takes from about nine to eleven years for a corpse to chemically disintegrate, or entirely divest itself of its earthly remnants and become a denuded skeleton.

To shorten the time for the spiritual consiousness of the astral body, while still adherent to the corporal rem- nants, would that not be good, or would it be wicked, or none-effectual?

As yet I have not had an opportunity to inspect the exhalations or emanations that may present themselves on the sometimes frosted windows of fish stores and game stores, nor undertaker's morgues and the more grewsome dissecting rooms and on tombs with glass windows— all fraught with the mysteries of death, or may be, astral life.

I am not sufficiently conversant with spiritism to know if there have been any authentic physical manifestations or materializations by spirits, whose bodies have been cremated or otherwise perished through fire. It would be Interesting to learn, authentically, as it would bear di- rectly on the subject in question, whether "the astral body of an individual form remains with the remnants of the latter until these remnants have been fully decomposed," to quote Dr. Franz Hartmann, — when logically the astral body belonging to the cremated body or remnants, which undergo immediate decomposition, or transmutation, would at once pass on to a higher spiritual plane. We might, or we might not, thus gain immediate accession to a more beatified condition, by cremation one way or another.

I read some little time ago of a terrible explosion of fifty-five tons of black gunpowder, near Toulon, in France,

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Sunday, March 5, 1899. About sixty people were blown into fragments. The explosion it is believed, was caused by chemical decomposition of smokless powder. Now, with which scattered limb of each individual did the astral body or spirit make the ascent? And descended, as each individual limb would not entirely decompose for some considerable time, with which did the astral body elect to stay, or did it not rather stick to each individual limb, and in that manner became entirely torn asunder, into so many cloudy shreds, or did it probably remain with the brains? But, then, of course, they were scattered, too- poured out of the sculls like hash or stirabout from a cup. With which part then, did the astral consciousness remain? An enigma, indeed, for any psychologist. The contempla- tion of these queries might make the staunchest theoso- phist quake in his shoes for fear of being mixed up in, or rather say, scattered -promiscuously about in any kind of explosion.

Or, to follow up the purport of this essay, will not each individual limb retain a stunted or abrogated vital force, of which the chopped-up cereals and tobacco leaves gave an indication, when displaying their maimed portions in atten- uated ice tracings, or palingenesis on the frosted windows? There is certainly a suggestion of comparison. Or will the scattered limbs, as in the case of the maimed celery plants, which nevertheless displayed their entire form on the frosty windows, retain the vital force in its entirety? Or as the effect of the burned pieces of spruce fir wood evinced still retain in their redolent essence their entire form, or like as Linnaeus found the seed in the tea plant efflorescent in an entire ice tea plant? I don't intend this for a pun, but just think of it. Nature's conundrums. I must perforce acknowledge myself an agnostic in this respect. Yes, with

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which UQdecayed particles does the spirit or astral body remain? Is it a case of attenuation? Or of division? Or is it a case of cellular or molecular multiplication? Or always of radiation? Or of vibration? Which is it? Which, which? Oh, "what fools these mortals be!" Are we not told, that "Spirit" is God, God is omnipresent in every minutest thing, what does it matter then if we were blown into atoms we may profess? Each atom is imponderable, in- destructible, impalpable, a part of "the incomprehens- ible original motive power, " to quote Linnaeus. But has each individual atom also individual consciousness? Ay, "there's the rub," but I will tell you: The never failing instinct of every individual atom proclaims the ever pres- ent intelligent volition of an Omnipotent God.

A practical illustration may be added: If a man has a leg or arm amputated, he may even for some time be -un- conscious thereof, and after the operation for a long time still feel the usual extension of the limb, and the astral toes and fingers, so to speak, being occasionally benumbed by cold. What does this infer? But after some length of time the feeling ceases. What does this infer, if not that the segregated limb has by this time completely decom- posed and withdrawn its astral counterpart from the main body? It is related how a man had his nose badly hurt, and to repair the same another man kindly allowed a part of his skin to be cut off and grafted on the injured nose. All went merrily for a long time, but finally the generous man who had allowed a patch of his skin to be donated to the other man's nose died, and after a little while the skin patch on the nose began to decompose and had to be taken away, or it would have infected the entire artificial nose, and made the whole affair rotten throughout. What are we to infer from that, but that the astral body of the de-

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fimct man was on account of the chemical decomposition leaving the putrid corporeal remains, and likewise withdrew its last vital influence from the patch of skin on the nose aforesaid. It sounds almost ridiculous, but it was no laughing matter for the man with the artificial nose.

On contemplating the other extreme — the astral bodies attached to drowned corpses, confined within sub- merged hulks of wrecked vessels at the bottom of the seas — will it not suggest to our contemplation, or, at any rate, to our imagination, that these water-bound sprites, being tied to these human remnants or bodies, which are doomed to resist decomposition for a much longer, nay, indifferent period, must mean non-liberation or non-sep- aration to them in tiiis saline submarine world, and thus present to our imagination a lively astral community within and around the hulks of all submerged wrecks — a kind of ghostly "American Hotel " life, or, as Macbeth has it, "cribbed, cabined and confined?" A phase of astral life, I believe, not hitherto invaded from a theosophical point of view. A weird, uncanny place and phase to con- template, but yet a factor in astral plane, undesirable to dwell long among, unless the prolonged spiritual or astral imprisonment, in comparison with the period pending a new re-incarnation, or mundane existence (in some pisca- torial shape, perhaps, taking the watery element into con- sideration, and that the larger fishes, at least, are by no means devoid of instinct or elementary intelligence and passions, as witness the furious combats between whales), unless to the astral entities, or consciousnesses, these apal- ling years may seem only like mere fleeting moments.

Did it ever strike your fancy, as it has forcibly done mine, that those globular, bloated looking fishes, like round heads, floating about the salt main, frightfully

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resembling severed human heads, might appropriately be considered as representing the swelled heads of glutton- ous city fathers or boodling aldermen, that have ultimately received their meed in an oceanic shipwreck and now go prowling about, bristling, gloating, glaring to see whom they may devour, still intent upon a grab in their pisca- torial, punitive existence, as the theosophical theory might suggest, living out their "liarma," until the period of passing on to a higher plane has arrived? I never see any of those bloated looking piscine physiognomies, but, grinaly smiling, I say to myself: "Might not that be some cruel uncle, or defrauding trustee, or the pugnacious villain of some human melodrama?" And if everything has an astral body or counterpart, which the frostflowers led us to speculate upon and assert, what will the astral bodies of the slimy monsters of the deep be like? It makes the blood curdle and the nerves shudder to specu- late thereon. Some of those curious creatures go about with their own electric lamps stuck up before their eyes on a horny bracket, and some have eyes that emit their own electric light. A most wonderful world, that sub- marine realm, but what position, if any, does it occupy in the evolution of "Karma," or transit of astral life? we may ask, since astral or spiritual consciousness does not detach itself until final decomposition is arrived at, nec- essarily retarded by the saline aquatic element.

It has several times been asserted during the last thirty years that the fishermen at the mouth of the river Porto in Portugal are able to restore a drowned person to life still after twenty-four hours immersion in the water, which seems to bear out later scientific assertions that it takes from three to thirty-six hours for life to quit the body, that is, the vital force to exude, that no one dies

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instantly, from which, however, we are forced to exempt those that are burned up, somewhat reluctantly admitting the truth of the theosophical belief that the astral or or spiritual body remains until the last remnant is decayed, and of which the radiation of life force from apparently dead plants, but still endowed with particles of extant vitality, have given us an exemplification as demonstrated by the frost flowers frequently referred to in this paper.

If it be true that the Portuguese fisher folk can restore life yet after twenty-four hours immersion in the water, why has not the world at large utilized this knowledge? I heard it related already in my youth, and have since read about it, as a mere curious item, but have to acknowledge having hitherto been as reprehensibly silent upon the matter as those to whose function or department it cer- tainly belonged to elucidate the world.

From our observation of ice tracings the frost seems in a manner to supply the means of astral resurrection ol plants, which Paracelsus and Dr. Hartmann refer to as being one of the secrets of the alchemists of bygone ages, for the plants plainly demonstrated by their ice palinge- nesis that they possess an innate power of extending their influence even into frost. With frost and cold we gener- ally associate death, just as with genial heat we associate life. But ice is not death, as witness the whole arctic region, replete with cold blooded animal life. Thus, then, we may infer that the frost flowers have been for the nonce imbued with life from their parent efflorescent plants, for else how could they have been called into exist- ence? And exist they must certainly do. Do we not here stand face to face with another wonder of creation — ice palingenesis, or evolution of a plant into a frost flower counterpart, an ice shadow of its material ego, which

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could not have been called into existence had the parent plant no self consciousness, no vital energy, no ego, no soul!

The great electrician, Thomas Edison, holds that plants possess consciousness. I am perfectly convinced of it, to- wit, if you deprive a creeper of its support, it will soon send out an eager tendril to find another hold, and I kiss with reverence every hand that kindly tends to the comfort and well being of window plants, moving them according to the sunlight they so much need and love, lopping them, and even talking to them in a way with "such love as soul to soul affordeth" children of the same creator. And in this light also the most ancient Hindoo sect, "The Jaines" (which means "the conquerors of self"), look upon all plants, and protect and cherish them accord- ingly. How much we boastful Christians have to learn from the misunderstood and maligned Hindus!

Have the plants any object in thus mirroring them- selves in fancy ice tracings, or is it a mere freak of the plant, as we hitherto thought it was a freak of "Jack Frost?" Depend upon it, there is no such thing as freak or chance in nature, although the transient existence of the frost flower on the glass may appear to us as purpose- less as it is inexplicable to most of us. Yet they will occur again and again as often as opportunity affords, a bit of nature, tiny and transient, I grant, but yet a phase of nature although hitherto ignored or laughed at. But from the attention drawn to the frost flowers I hope you will henceforth find them as interesting as heretofore you have found them, and always will find them, exquisitely beautiful, and that you may try and find out their cause and their mission.

I cannot leave this subject without again quoting my illstrious countryman, Linnaeus, the "Floral King," p. 131,

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as he with reverence apostrophizes the Maker of all these wonders : "I behold only the back of the Infinite, Omnis- cient and Almighty God, where He went forth, but I felt dazed. I tracked the footsteps over the fields of nature, and I observed in every one — even in those which I could scarcely descry — an infinite wisdom and power, an incon- ceivable perfection. I saw there how all animals were maintained by the vegetation, the vegetation by the soil, the soil by the globe, how the globe was turned night and day around the sun, which gave it life, how the sun with the planets and fixed stars rolled as on an axle, an incon- ceivable number and infinite space, and were kept up in the void nothingness by the incomprehensible motive power, all things' Being, the commander and mainspring of all causes, the Lord and Master of the world. If we wish to call Him Fate, we commit no fault, for everything hangs on His finger ; if we wish to call Him Nature, we neither commit any fault, because from Him everything has originated ; if we wish to call Him Providence we also speak rightly, for everything obeys His will and guidance. He is entirely Sense {Seyism), entirely Sight; entirely Hear- ing, he is Soul {Anima), He is Spirit {A7iimus), He alone is self sufficient! No human guess can comprehend this form; it is enough that he is an eternal and infinite divine Being, who is neither created nor born, a Being without whom nothing exists, that is made, a Being who has founded and built all this, who everywhere shimmers before our eyes, without our being able to see him, and who can only be beheld by our thoughts, for such a great Majesty sits upon such a sacred throne that there no one is admitted but the soul. "

How beautiful all this, how true, how incontrovertible! "The incomprehensible original motive power," as Lin-

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naeus has it, so stupendous, so adorable that we perforce must worship it, and for the sake of comprehensive brev- ity call it God, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God! Monotheism and pantheism comprehended and compressed into one, of whom we are part and parcel, but at which sublime conception our irreverent thoughts sometimes rebel, for that would make God participant in our crimes, our follies, our fallacies, which queries have often been mooted. But relevant queries which often have worried me individually, I will reluctancy note down : Is this our omnipresent Godhead also manifest in the grotesque, the comic, the irrational, the abnormal and kindred things? I can understand the Godhead using crime and folly in all their phases and shades to school our free will, but how about some of those other qualities and conditions, just enumerated — how about the grotesque and the innocently comical? Well, yes, we are forced to admit the omnipres- ence of "the incomprehensible original motive power," even in all those things, for God cannot help himself (so to speak without irreverence) from being omnipresent, for He is all in all, nothing whatever can exist outside of Him, or It, or Us, call it whatever you may, for "Spirit" is God, the intelligent force is here within us, about us, that cannot be refuted, and the conviction makes me feel that I may be perfectly justified in enjoying the grotesque, the comic, aye, even the follies of the world, when viewed from the right standpoint of innocent mirth or contempla- tive philosophy.

Eeturning to my friend, the spiritualist, to recount my frosted window investigations, I again quite unexpect- edly lit upon another curious experience of ice tracings. I observed that on the small upper side-pane of the bay window of the room in which his son slept, there was a

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most beautiful design of a wooded hill, at the bottom of which lay a small craft at anchor. A little way up the hill was a flat-roofed house and still higher another build- ing and a fine church with a tower. The architecture of each was very distinct. Two steeples and a flag staff were seen in the distance. Some ravines intersected the lower part, and trees and shrubs, rich in foliage, were scattered about. Above appeared an arch of clouds. It was a most exquisitely beautiful ice tracing, of which I drew a faint delineation on paper. I requested the family to ask the son on his return in the evening what he had dreamt the night previously, for I thought that possibly we might here be on the track of thought-photography, with which Boston has surprised the world, but the young man could remember nothing. However, the family intended shortly to remove to their old home in a rural place near Cleve- land, Ohio, which the father declared somewhat resembled the exquisite ice-tracing. When I saw the son (a young gentleman about thirty-two years old) a week later, he admitted that he frequently dreamt of their old home in Ohio, although he could not recollect having done so on the night in question. So that the inference of dream- thought transmission may thus still be left open.

Since then, returning one night about 8 o'clock by the State street cable car, I observed on all of the car windows opposite me exceedingly fine ice tracings. One as of a small part of a city, situated on the banks of a river, where a coal or grain chute was visible, and a vessel was lying beneath, as if receiving the cargo. Another fur- nished the interior of a tunnel with all the supports for an excavation, and a third was full of curious machinery and gear. I admit willingly that "Jack Frost" in this instance could easily cause anyone's imagination to run riot, — but I

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will ask you, who is of a practical mind, and of course un- derstand these things much better than we old fo^es do: "Is it possible that some workingmen had just been travel- ing homeward in this car, and had these images in their minds eye,— and gazing intently, or staring vacantly, whichever you may call it,— with the retinas of their own eyes had unconsciously transferred or positively photographed in ice tracings these mental impressions on the opposite negative moist plate glass, an object-lesson of co-related forces?"

While thus musing I fell into ruminating how our breath, invisible in warm atmosphere, in frosty weather becomes visible, in a manner materialized, as I saw illus- trated by all the passengers present, puffing away like little steam engines, emitting the molecular particles with which their respective engines had been fed.

Your own breath will in frosty air convince you that it materializes in infinitesimal crystallizations before your very eyes.

In conjunction with this I may mention that on some empty store windows were visible innumerable enlarged snowflakes, dotting the pane of glass on the inside, the moist atmosphere having crystallized in this manner of natural law of liquid salt.

And if you breathe on a piece of glass, and immediately apply a microscope thereon, you will discover tracings of beautiful foliage.

A physician informed me also that if you freeze urine in a small phial and submit it to a microscope you will discover beautiful foliage therein.

I would suggest to some physicians who may become acquainted with these our investigations of ice palingenesis that they would make experiments by freezing — exposing

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embryos and foetuses, in all their stages, to the influence of strong frost to see if any effect would be visible on the frosted glass. Such experiments might bring forth won- ders, and in a manner take the place of alcohol preserva- tions.

Indeed, taking into consideration all these evidences and tests that crowd in upon us, particularly from the vegetable world, the Biblical symbol of the "Tree of Life," and the accepted term of the "Tree of Genealogy" assume almost sacred character.

Our remote ancestors in ancient Thule, when con- structing their Scandinavian mythology on the basis of their more remote Aryan ancestors', symbolized this "Tree of Life" in an ash tree, Ygdrasil, which extended its influence everywhere. How strangely things come round in the whirligig of time, now that we begin to con- ceive that a veritable system of foliage permeates all nature as exemplified in numerous microscopic things, and on which I shall now discant. After all our ancestors were, perhaps, not such fools as we take them; they must have possessed some intuitive knowledge.

If you insert an incandescent electric light into a large chunk of ice you will be amazed by discovering tracings of beautiful foliage concealed therein, but this will probably only occur in impure ice, containing animal and vegetable matter, not in ice from distilled water; the test remains to be made.

On the small, frosted windows of coal dealers there will occasionally be seen attempts at tracings of crystals and curious foliage, and also circles, with numerous irregu- lar rings, like the surface of blocks of wood, sawn across, displaying the year-rings of the arborial growth. Can it be possible, or might it not be possible, that the foliage dis-

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coverable in a cliunk of ice, and the emanations from, or aura of, a chunk of coal have something in common, say a latent, abiding co-relation to each other In eternal cosmos, water (chaos' condensed steam?) made impure with the arbcrial astral, or soul, of anti-deluvian forests, which were compressed into coal layers eeons ago? "The same substances in different chemical spectrums." It is sug- gestive at any rate.

I only ask some one else regarding all these phenom- ena, perhaps some scientist may suggest other, and more satisfactory explanations.

The law of radiation, or the law of vibration, no doubt, may offer some solution of the frostflower phenomena, but by no means exhaustive in regard to all the phases alluded to in this paper, besides, these, as well as all other natural laws, accrue from the divine origin and volition within, — all manifestations of the all-pervading, God-imbued motive power of all things, whether purely physical or gradually merging into metaphysical.

Of course I expect I shall be ignored, or at the best abused, or struck down with the academical rod, the aphorism that "a little learning is a dangerous thing," but I will meekly defend myself, or at any rate try to avert the blow, with the Shakespearian parry that, "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, " and to which, I am sure, no academical expounder will as yet find satisfactory solu- tions, including some of those I have in an humble, unpre- tentious manner propounded in this paper.

ALBEET ALBEEG, 3555 Fifth Ave. , Author and Lecturer.

Chicago, III., June, 1899.

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