Englishmen UNDER the Ice (part ten) - Rapping on the table

The disappearance of John Franklin's 1845 expedition to find the Northwest passage caused a flurry of activity in the spirit world and an innovative use of his letters...of archive material, I suppose...as a means of talking to the dead...I suppose that all archive reading is a means of communication with the spirit world, but this was intended rather more literally...

This is an excerpt from 'A practical investigation into the Truth of Clairvoyance containing Revelations of the fate of Sir John Franklin and some enquiries into the mysterious rappings of the present day by An Unprejudiced Observer' in which the 'Observer' describes taking one of Franklin’s letters to a clairvoyant:

'In no way or manner did I mention my possession of this letter to the clairvoyant, or ever hint at the slightest intimation of submitting such a letter to her. When awake she has no suspicion that she was being questioned on the subject. She has no views of her own to support, and takes no deeper interest in the matter than the generality of feweling hearted persons. I procured then, a letter of Sir John Franklin and placed it in the clairvoyant's hand. The following remarkable answers were elicited by the questions which I put.
Q: I put a letter in your hand, can you tell me anything about it?
A: have you put salt on it? * I never saw the writer.
* this letter was not written at sea, but in London

Q: Is it from a man or a woman
A: And I never will.

Q: Why not?
A: I think nobody will ever see him again.

Q: Is the writer a man or a woman?
A: A man

Q: Can you tell where he is now?
A: He is down in the water; all of them, when I saw them.

Q: How did they get down in the water?
A: I saw them in a ship; the ice went up against it and broke it in pieces. They ran about the deck and cried out. I do not see them now. It is all solitary. There was daylight there, but the weather was heavy and dark. I saw them on the ship. There was plenty of open water, but the wind blew and the ice rushed down. I saw them once on land. They came to land in little boats, then got into their ship, and came no more. They left three people behind.

Q: Why?
A: Because they had closed their eyes.

Q: Did you see the writer of that letter on shore?
A: Yes. They were very comfortable. If they had stayed there they would be living now, but they made haste to get in their ship and they soon went (down). You will never hear any more of them. They will never be found in all the places where they are looking for them. They left no paper, they did not mean to go for some time, but the water came open, and they went away quickly. '

It's not just on blogs that we get to hear from the dead and disappeared...