William Edward Hickson to Faraday   17 May 1853

Fairseat, Wrotham | Kent | May 17/53

My dear Sir,

Are we not on the eve of some new discovery in Dynamics?

I allude to the curious phenomena of ‘table moving’ which I am anxious to see our scientific men take out of the hands of Electro biologist charlatans & spirit manifesters.

The facts to be investigated appear to me so important, and incredulity respecting them from this singularity is so natural, that I am induced to send you an account of what has passed under my observation within the last two days.

1st Experiment - Three persons sitting round a small round drawing room work table with their hands upon it & fingers touching, for an hour & a quarter. | No result.

2nd Experiment of four persons round a kitchen table for an hour & a half. No result.

In both the above cases of failure the experimenters were on the shady side of forty.

3rd Experiment. Seven young ladies of from 12 to 16 yrs of age standing in a schoolroom, about a round kitchen table with their hands upon it & fingers joined. In half an hour the table began turning round with considerable rapidity - the feet (without castors) grating harshly on the floor. I then joined the circle, when it paus’d a little, as if to re-establish an equilibrium,- resum’d, tilted itself up with considerable force & fell over on one side.

These phenomena were repeated several times during the same evening,- changing the circle; and I noticed at each change a pause, and a pause of longer or shorter duration according to the apparent amount of vitality possessed by the different persons who join’d. One young lady of 16 of a florid complexion & full habit of body seemed to have more power than the rest; so much so that the table almost immediately began spinning when she joined the circle, but with or without her the ultimate result was always the same.

4th Experiment. I placed two needles at right angles on the table while in motion, but could perceive no deflection. They seem’d however to stick to the table more than usual, but roll’d off when it tipt up.

5th Experiment. A hat was plac’d on the table, and the fingers join’d (of the last circle) on the hat. Hat & table in a few minutes began moving round together. Afterwards the hat by itself.

6th Experiment. Four of us from the last circle, (myself one) took the hat to another table with a screen top, still keeping up the chain. The hat again began to move, and with it the top of the table, which unscrew’d itself & came off.

Returning home I call’d at my friend Fowler’s¹ the architect, whose family had been busy all the evening trying similar experiments. They had fail’d to move a table but were succeeding with a hat when I entered the room. The circle was formed of three young ladies of 20, & Charles Fowler² <(25)> whose fingers were joined & lightly resting on the brim of the hat,- the hat moving round as if turning on a pivot, first from left to right & then, after about 1/2 a dozen turns, going back again from right to left.

This latter circumstance stopt my theorizing, for in Miss Grants’³ schoolroom the motions, whether of hat or table, had always been from left to right, as if following some tellurian circuit.

But query, may not all force, that of magnetism included, be deriv’d from the original motive power of centrifugal & centripetal action?

Yours very truly | W.E. Hickson

M. Faraday Esq