ared slate, face downwards, on the table, with his fingers
resting on the upper surface, then in a few minutes the slate was lifted
up and the writing displayed, as though just made by Spiritual agency.
Generally, however, when the writing is thus exhibited, it is in answer
to a spoken question, and the reply is written by the Medium in his lap
and the slate turned over before it is placed on the table. Manifestly
it cannot occur as an answer to a written question, unless the written
question is exposed on the upper side of the slate.

How the scratching of the slate pencil is produced when the slate is
lying on the table (I have been told that the sound is heard then) I
cannot possibly explain, for the plain reason that I am too deaf to hear
it, and I was, therefore, never on the watch for anything unusual. (Nor
did I ever hear the sound of writing when the slate was held on the
shoulder of my opposite neighbor, but I could see, and I knew what was
going on, for the slate had once been placed on my own shoulder.)

When three slates are used, the third, and prepared, slate, is either on
the little table behind him or on the floor resting against the supports
of this little table. In either case he seizes the opportunity when his
sitters are engrossed with an answer just given to a question, to
substitute one of the slates which he has been using, and which he has
just before ostentatiously washed on both sides, for the prepared slate.
This I have distinctly seen him do twice, and once when I had arisen
from my seat to read an answer on the slate, held by Mr. Sellers, I
noticed when I resumed my seat that a certain slate which I had been
watching was gone from where it had been resting against the leg of the
little table, and we then immediately had the long message between
closed slates. [This was the 'inferential' substitution referred to on
page 59 of this Appendix.] The slate which we have preserved and had
photographed I saw him take from the table at his back.

Next, as to his answers to questions. I became so familiar with his
methods in this department that I could have told at almost any instant
what he was doing.

After the question has been written the slate is handed to him face
downward. A piece of pencil is then placed on the slate near the edge of
the slate farthest from the Medium's hand as it holds the slate; of
course, as the writing is to be done under cover of the table, and as
the Medium's hand or