RECENT WORK ON THE X RAYS. 103 



I do not care now to object to the qualitative judgments liere 

 expressed ; but liow about the quantity of praise and blame that is 

 bestowed ? Is it probable that the writer of these words ever had 

 much thorough training in the mathematics and physical sci- 

 ences ? Indeed, can he ever have studied anything quantita- 

 tively ? 



It is not my main purpose, however, to argue for the disci- 

 plinary value of scientific study; its more direct and substantive 

 value for the student of literature is what I have wished espe- 

 cially to set forth. There seem to be two great types of col- 

 legiate education, the literary and the scientific. That natural 

 science has an important role to play in the ideal literary edu- 

 cation I firmly believe ; and in support of this position I appeal 

 to the prophecy of Wordsworth, to the poetry of Tennyson, and 

 to the reason of the case. 



RECENT WORK ON THE X RAYS. 



THE general interest which the so-called Rontgen rays have 

 excited among the unscientific as well as among the special- 

 ists seems to justify a more extended treatment than their actual 

 value to humanity, so far as at present known, would warrant. 

 The following extracts are taken from the published state- 

 ments of some of the more prominent physicists. They are more 

 or less tentative, as all such work at present must necessarily be ; 

 but they are of interest, as showing the lines along which experi- 

 mentation is going on, and they perhaps offer some indication of 

 the probable future of this curious form of energy. 



In a paper read before the Paris Academy of Sciences M. Jean 

 Perrin says : " Two hypotheses have been propounded to explain 

 the properties of the cathode rays. Some physicists think with 

 Goldstein, Hertz, and Lenard, that this phenomenon is, like light, 

 due to vibrations of the ether, or even that it is light of short wave 

 length. It is easily understood that such waves may have a recti- 

 linear path, excite phosphorescence, and affect photographic plates. 

 Others think, with Crookes and J. J. Thompson, that these rays 

 are formed by matter which is negatively charged and moving 

 with great velocity, and on this hypothesis their mechanical prop- 

 erties, as well as the manner in which they become curved in a 

 magnetic field, are readily explicable.'^ A series of experiments 

 which the author made, and which are given in Nature for Janu- 

 ary 30th, lead him to the following conclusions. " These results as 

 a whole do not appear capable of being easily reconciled with the 

 theory which regards the cathode rays as being ultra-violet light. 

 On the other hand, they agree well with the theory which regards 



