osity, he
turned on his mother, who stood wringing her hands in the doorway and
moaning piteously, and exclaimed, "I can see the moon yonder, and it is
so beautiful that I am going there to-morrow morning, as soon as I get
up."

"How big does it look?" said his mother.

"So big," he replied, "that I cannot see it all at one glance--as big as
all out of doors."

"How far off from you does it seem to be?"

"About half a car's distance," he quickly rejoined.

It may be here remarked that the boy's idea of distance had been
measured all his life by the distance from his home to the street-car
station at the foot of the hill. This was about two hundred yards, so
that the reply indicated that the moon appeared to be only one hundred
yards from the spectator. The boy then proceeded of his own accord to
give a very minute description of the appearance of objects which he
beheld, corresponding, of course, to his poverty of words with which to
clothe his ideas.

His account of things beheld by him was so curious, wonderful and
apparently accurate, that the little group about him passed rapidly from
a conviction of his insanity to a belief no less absurd--that he had
become, in the cant lingo of the day, a seeing, or "clairvoyant" medium.
Such was the final conclusion to which his parents had arrived at the
time of the visit of the scientific committee. He had been classed with
that credulous school known to this century as spiritualists, and had
been visited solely by persons of that ilk heretofore.

The committee having fully examined the boy, and a number of independent
witnesses, as to the facts, soon set about a scientific investigation of
the true causes of of the phenomenon. The first step, of course, was to
examine the lad's eye with the modern ophthalmoscope, an invention of
Professor Helmholtz, of Heidelberg, a few years ago, by means of which
the depths of this organ can be explored, and the smallest variations
from a healthy or normal condition instantaneously detected.

The mode of using the instrument is as follows: The room is made
perfectly dark; a brilliant light is then placed near the head of the
patient, and the rays are reflected by a series of small mirrors into
his eye, as if they came from the eye of the observer; then, by looking
through the central aperture of the instrument, the oculist can examine
the illuminated interior of the eyeball, and perceive every detail of
structure, healthy or morbi