Social War

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

the name of a noted 16°-18° S., and lon. 148°-155° W. There are 13 principal islands, besides numerous islets, ets, and the total area of the group is estimated at 734 square miles. The chief islands are TAHITI and Moorea. The first has an area of 600 square miles; pop. about 11,600; the latter an area of 50 square miles; pop. 1,500. The Society Islands are of basaltic formation and abound in lofty and precipitous mountains usually fringed by a belt of flat land. Two peaks in Tahiti are respectively 7,000 and 8,700 feet high. Coral reefs are very abundant round all the islands. The soil being extremely fertile and water plentiful, the vegetation The of the islands is most luxuriant. climate is healthy, but enervating, and terrible hurricanes occur from time to time. The inhabitants belong to the Polynesian race and are handsome, brave, and intelligent, but indolent, fickle, immoral, and passionately fond of ardent spirits. On account of their indolence Chinese and Hervey Islanders are imported to work the cotton plantations. The people of Huahine, however, are er enterprising traders, and their flag is seen as far away as San Francisco. The chief exports from the islands are cotton, cocoanut oil, copra, pearl shell, and oranges. The Society Islands were discovered by De Quiros in 1606, but were first made known to the world by Cook, who visited them in 1769, and named them after the Royal Society, at whose recommendation the expedition which he commanded was fitted out. They have been the scene of missionary labors since 1797, and have for many years been entirely Christian. Taking advantage of a quarrel between the Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries, the French espoused the cause of the latter, who were the last in the field, and seized the islands in 1844. In 1847 they were expelled by the natives from Huahine, Raiatea, and Bora-Bora, which, with small dependencies, were again ruled by their own sovereigns. The entire group was officially annexed by France in 1880. A hurricane of great severity nearly wiped off the population of Tahiti early in March, 1906. It lasted some seventeen hours, and the wind reached an hourly velocity of 120 miles. SOCIETY-PSYCHICAL RESEARCH 482 SEARCH, a society founded in England in 1882 under the presidency of Prof. H. Sedgwick, of Cambridge University, for the purpose of "making an organized attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeric, psychical, and spiritualistic." Six committees were appointed to examine (1) the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind on another otherwise than through the recognized sensory channels; (2) hypnotism and mesmerism; (3) obscure relations between living organisms and electric and magnetic forces; (4) haunted house and ghosts; (5) spiritualism; (6) for the collection of existing evidence in connection with these subjects, and especially in connection with apparitions at the moment of death, or otherwise. A special committee was also appointed in 1885 to investigate the remarkable occurrences which the Theosophical Society claimed to have witnessed. All these committees, however, were subsequently dissolved, and experimental investigation and the collection of evidence left in the hands of individual members, the results of their inquiries to be embodied in papers and read before the society, and also, if they desire, to be published by them. The society has published reports containing papers on thought reading, on mesmerism, on apparitions and haunted houses, and on many other similar subjects. It has a membership of more than 900, with a branch in the United States with more than 500 members and associates; publishes monthly "Proceedings"; and has already gathered quite a large library of works in various languages, all bearing on topics of a more or less mysterious character. Articles on various subjects have also been contributed by members of the society to various magazines. All that the "investigations" have done has been to bring together a mass of so-called evidence in the form of testimony from persons who claim to have seen or experienced something abnormal or out of the common way. See PSYCHICAL RE- SEARCH.