During Colonel Taylor’s tenancy a good many experiments of different kinds were made in hypnotism, crystal gazing, and automatic writing.  These, however, belong to a class of matter quite different from that of spontaneous phenomena, and are therefore not referred to, with the exception of a single instance of crystal gazing, which, though relating to B——­, was made elsewhere, and one or two occasions of automatic writing.  This latter method of inquiry displayed all the weakness to which it is usually, and apparently, inherently liable, and is only mentioned here as explaining other matters.  Its chief interest was that it supplied a name marked by a certain peculiarity which afterwards became familiar, and that it led to a hypothesis as to at least one of the personalities by whom certain phenomena were professedly caused.

In the afternoon an experiment was made with the apparatus known as a Ouija board, and this, as is very often the case, resolved itself, after a time, into automatic writing.  There is in the library a portrait of a very handsome woman, to which no name is attached, but which shows the costume of the last century.  Her name was asked, and the word Ishbel was given several times.  It is not certain whether this word was meant as an answer to the question, or whether, as often happens in such cases, it was intended merely as an announcement of the name of the informant supposed to communicate.

The word, as given, possesses the following peculiarity.  In the Gaelic language the vowels e and i have the effect of aspirating an s immediately preceding them, in the same way in which they effect the c in Italian, or the g in Spanish, so that, as in Italian ce and ci are pronounced chay and chee, so in Gaelic se and si are pronounced shay and shee.  The name Isabel is written in Gaelic Iseabal, but the e is absorbed in its effect upon the s (like the i in the Italian cio) and the first a is so slurred as to be almost inaudible, so that the word is pronounced “Ish-bel.”

It was obvious, therefore, that the intelligence from which the writing proceeded (if such existed) could write in English, and was familiar with the colloquial Gaelic pronunciation of the name, but was unacquainted with the Gaelic orthography.  On this occasion also the name “Margaret” was given in its Gaelic form of Marghearad (somewhat similarly misspelt as Marget), without any special connection either with the questions asked, or, so far as could be discovered, with anything in the mind of any present, none of whom had interested themselves at that time in the S——­ ancestry.

In reply to questions as to what could be done that was of use or interest, the writers were told to go at dusk, and in silence, to the glen in the avenue, and this, rightly or wrongly, some of those present identified with what had been called Scamp’s Copse.  They were, however, perplexed by being told to go “up by the burn,” for though Miss Freer and Miss Moore had twice explored the spot, they had not observed the presence of water.  The journal continues—­