The Evening Times

sense it is not of an acoustic nature.
It is not influenced by the walls of
rooms or houses nor by their direction
and position, as it would be if influenced by sound waves.
The sense of obstacles is supposed
to be of a tactile character: it seems
to be the function
of
atmospheric
pressure and temperature.
The sense
is supposed to lie in the forehead. because experiments have shown that it
is reduced to a third of its original
strength if the forehead of the blind
man is wet with a five per cent so-
lution of cocaine.
The sense of obstacle
is
not
a
"sixth sense," nor is it a new sense pro-
duced spontaneously as compensation
for the loss of sight. Not all the blind
possess the sense of obstacles, which
moreover, differs even among those in-
dividuals who possess it. This sense
of obstacles is powerful in some who
are not blind. The ultra sensitive pos-
sess it to a high degree. It may be
an instinctive education of the sense
of touch which gives to the skin of
the face the power to feel certain in-
finitesimal atmospheric pressures or
currents of air too feeble to impress
the sense of the ordinary mortal but
strong enough to be felt by people pe-
culiarly constituted.