220 NATURAL SCIENCE [October 



deposits of guano are becoming exhausted, and our final resource, 

 the nitrate-fields of Chile, cannot last more than fifty years, even if 

 the demands upon them be not increased. The solution proposed 

 by Sir William Crookes is the formation of nitrate by the com- 

 bustion of the atmosphere. This can be effected, he says, by passing 

 a strong induction current between terminals. By utilising natural 

 sources of power, an electric current may be obtained that will 

 enable nitrate of soda to be produced at less than £5 per ton, two- 

 thirds the price of Chile nitrate. 



The Mysteries of Matter 



The second portion of the Presidential address was interesting 

 chiefly for its speculations on the constitution of matter. Here 

 Sir William adduced the various recent discoveries confirmatory of 

 his own views, so long opposed, as to the existence of molecular 

 streams of electrified radiant matter. The task of the future is to 

 render available the energy contained in matter that to outward 

 appearance is quiescent. The phosphorescence of uranium, and in 

 a higher degree of the newly discovered polonium, is due to its 

 power of extracting such energy, however that power be explicable. 

 A new application of the principles that underly his theory of 

 radiant matter has within the last few weeks enabled Sir William 

 Crookes to add another to his remarkable successes in the frac- 

 tionation and spectrograph^ study of the rare earths. He believes 

 that he has demonstrated the existence of yet another element, 

 which he terms Monium, because the lines of its spectrum stand 

 alone, almost at the extreme end of the ultra-violet. 



These far-reaching speculations as to the existence of energy, 

 barely thinkable and yet capable of investigation, of measurement, 

 and of utilisation, naturally led Sir William Crookes on to the most 

 debateable and most confessedly speculative part of his address. 

 To his previously published statements on the subject of psychical 

 research, he adheres. However far we may accompany or lag 

 behind Sir William in acceptance of the alleged phenomena of tele- 

 pathy, this at least we must recognise in his words : the belief on 

 the one hand that the enquiry has not yet reached the scientific 

 stage of certainty ; on the other hand, that any explanation will be 

 an extension of theories of the constitution of the material universe 

 already widely held and serving as the basis of actual experiment. 

 Whether the suggestion, which we imagine to be implied, that 

 telepathy is analogous to wireless telegraphy be accepted by physi- 

 ologists matters little. We believe that it is right of Sir William 

 Crookes to allude to these matters from the President's chair, since 

 we think that for their investigation is demanded the co-operation 

 of the keenest intellects in all branches of science. " To ignore the 



