No subject to which I have ever devoted myself has called for such tration of mind and straio so dangerous a degree the fi fibers of my brain as the system of which the Magnifying Transmitter is the foundation. I put all the iy and vigor of youth in the development of the rotating field discoveries, but those early labors were of a different character.
Although strenuous ireme, they did not involve that keen and exhausting disment which had to be exercised in attag the many puzzling problems of the wireless. Despite my rare physical endura that period the abused nerves finally rebelled and I suffered a plete collapse, just as the mation of the long and difficult task was almost in sight.
Without doubt I would have paid a greater penalty later, and very likely my career would have beeurely terminated, had not providence equipt me with a safety device, which has seemed to improve with advang years and unfailingly es into play when my forces are at an end. So long as it operates I am safe from danger, due to overwork, which threatens other iors and, ially, I need no vacations which are indispensable to most people. When I am all but used up I simply do as the darkies, who "naturally fall asleep while white folks worry". To veheory out of my sphere, the body probably accumulates little by little a definite quantity of some toxic agent and I sink into a nearly lethargic state which lasts half an hour to the minute. Upon awakening I have the sensation as though the events immediately preg had occurred very long ago, and if I attempt to tihe interrupted train of thought I feel a veritable mental nausea. Involuntarily I then turn to other work and am surprised at the freshness of the mind and ease with which I overe obstacles that had baffled me before. After weeks or months my passion for the temporarily abandoned iiourns and I invariably find ao all the vexing questions with scarcely any effort. In this e I will tell of araordinary experience which may be of io students of psychology.
I had produced a striking phenomenon with my grouransmitter and was endeav to ascertain its true signifi relation to the currents propagated through the earth. It seemed a hopeless uaking, and for more than a year I worked uingly, but in vain. This profound study so entirely absorbed me that I became fetful of everything else, even of my undermined health. At last, as I was at the point of breaking down, nature applied the preservative indug lethal sleep. Regaining my senses I realized with sternation that I was uo visualize ses from my life except those of infancy, the very first ohat had entered my sciousness. Curiously enough, these appeared before my vision with startling distiness and afforded me wele relief. Night after night, wheiring, I would think of them and more and more of my previous existence was revealed. The image of my mother was always the principal figure in the spectacle that slowly unfolded, and a ing desire to see her again gradually took possession of me. This feeling grew s that I resolved to drop all work and satisfy my longing. But I found it too hard to break away from the laboratory, and several months elapsed during which I had succeeded in reviving all the impressions of my past life up to the spring of 1892. In the picture that came out of the mist of oblivion, I saw myself at the Hotel de la Paix in Paris just ing to from one of my peculiar sleeping spells, which had been caused by prolonged exertion of the