own, Pfeffel observed a trembling of his
guide's arm whenever they passed over a certain spot. He asked the cause
of this, and extracted from his companion the unwilling confession, that
over that spot he was attacked by certain uncontrollable sensations, which
he always felt where human bodies had been buried. At night, he added,
over such spots, he saw uncanny things. "This is great folly," Pfeffel
thought, "and I will cure him of it." The poet went, therefore, that very
night into the garden. When they approached the place of dread, Billing
perceived a feeble light, which hovered over it. When they came nearer, he
saw the delicate appearance of a fiery, ghost-like form. He described it
as the figure of a female with one arm across her body, and the other
hanging down, hovering upright and motionless over the spot, her feet
being a few hand-breadths above the soil. The young man would not approach
the vision, but the poet beat about it with his stick, walked through it,
and seemed to the eyes of Billing like a man who beats about a light
flame, which always returns to its old shape. For months, experiments were
continued, company was brought to the spot, the spectre remained visible
always in the dark, but to the young man only, who adhered firmly to his
statement, and to his conviction that a body lay beneath. Pfeffel at last
had the place dug up, and, at a considerable depth, covered with lime,
there was a skeleton discovered. The bones and the lime were dispersed,
the hole was filled up, Billing was again brought to the spot by night,
but never again saw the spectre.

This ghost story, being well attested, created a great sensation. In the
curious book, by Baron Reichenbach, translated by Dr. Gregory, it is
quoted as an example of a large class of ghost stories which admit of
explanation upon principles developed by his own experiments.

The experiments of Baron Reichenbach do not, indeed, establish a new
science, though it is quite certain that they go far to point out a new
line of investigation, which promises to yield valuable results. So much
of them as concerns our subject may be very briefly stated. It would
appear that certain persons, with disordered nervous systems, liable to
catalepsy, or to such affections, and also some healthy persons who are of
a peculiar nervous temperament, are more sensitive to magnetism than their
neighbors. They are peculiarly acted upon by the magnet, and are,
moreover, very mu