THE MEDIUMS’ BOOK

156. Instead of a basket, some persons use a kind of little table made for the purpose, with three feet, one of which carries a pencil; the other two are rounded, or furnished with a little ivory ball, to make it glide smoothly over the paper. Others use a simple planchette, triangular, oblong, or oval; on one edge is an oblique hole for the pencil; placed to write, it is inclined, and rests by one side on the paper ; this side is sometimes finished with two little rollers to facilitate the movement. It may be readily imagined that there is nothing absolute in any of these arrangements; the most convenient is the best.

With all these machines, two persons are almost always necessary; but it is not necessary that the sec- ond person should be endowed with the medianimic faculty : it is only to maintain the equilibrium, and diminish the fatigue of the medium.