LATEST DEVELOPMENTS WITH THE X RAYS. 671 



see the colors from red to violet, bnt the dark colors, so to speak, 

 formed by waves longer than ^o-oTo of an inch and shorter than 

 fOTuiro of an inch make no recognizable impress upon our retina, 

 unless, indeed, thev constitute telepathic signals which apparently 

 stir our consciousness and make us believe that friends are commu- 

 nicating from a distance. The electrical discharge has lifted, so to 

 speak, a realm of short waves of energy out of the darkness and 

 made them visible. Can the human brain be made conscious of 

 other waves which fill space? 



But we have not by any means exhausted the protean manifes- 

 tations of the X rays. Besides the photographic, the phosphores- 

 cent, and fluorescent effects, there are still more singular proper- 

 ties of these rays. One of the most striking consists in their open- 

 ing a path for a current of electricity. The electrical discharge, 

 feeble in itself, not capable of lifting by means of a motor a pound 

 weight a foot from the floor, is yet competent to open a path for 

 a current which can set all the trolley cars of a great city in motion. 

 To exhibit this mysterious effect we bring the ends of the electrical 

 current which we wish to excite near each other, but not touching, 

 in a glass tube with thin walls, from which the air has been ex- 

 hausted. When the X rays fall on the gap between the wires the 

 electrical current immediately jumps across the gap with a vivid 

 light. We have here the mechanism of an electrical relay — the 

 feeble energy of the electric discharge can call into play a giant 

 energy. By what energy does it accomplish this? Is it by com- 

 pelling molecules to put themselves in line, so that the electrical 

 current can bridge the gap? Is it by breaking down this myste- 

 rious ether of space, as if we threw a stone at a turbid bull's eye 

 in a prison chamber and let in a flood of sunlight? How the im- 

 agination is stirred by this process, what seems dead and lifeless 

 can, by a physical agency, be stirred to endless activity! The 

 rays are like the touch of Ithuriel's spear. 



The electrical discharge can accomplish all this, but the story 

 of its activity is not yet told. It can not be told, for each year 

 adds information in regard to these activities, for there are thou- 

 sands of investigators at work. Another far-reaching manifesta- 

 tion is this: the rays can separate the air or a gas into its constitu- 

 ent particles, much as a strong electrical current separates water 

 into oxygen and hydrogen. They can communicate electrical 

 charges to these particles — positive and negative charges. The 

 charged air-particles, when forced through partitions of spun glass, 

 does not give up their electricity as they do when they are charged 

 by an electrical machine. This ciu'ious manifestation leads me to 

 suspect that the electricity- and magnetism of the earth may be 



