118 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



scientific researches, but no true Englishman can under- 

 estimate the importance of fostering the spirit of enterprise 

 in his countrymen, or fail to desire that the race of men, from 

 Cabot to McClintock, which has been formed by expeditions 

 of discovery should be continued." 



The noble views thus expressed lead me to suggest a hope 

 that, when an adequate conception of the many advantages 

 that must accrue to the world at large from the aid which 

 properly-equipped antarctic expeditions may be expected to 

 afford in solving the problems I have alluded to has been 

 brought home to the Governments and people of the Aus- 

 tralasian Colonies, they will extend to the enterprising men 

 who are about to engage in those expeditions the like coun- 

 tenance, sympathy, and material assistance which are certain 

 to be afforded to them, sooner or later, by the Government and 

 people of our Mother-country. 



Discovery of the Eontgen Eays. 

 Passing from the foregoing subject, I propose now to refer 

 to a most remarkable event in the history of physical and 

 chemical science that has lately occurred, and has excited 

 extraordinary and universal interest. I allude to the dis- 

 covery, by Professor Eontgen of Berlin, of the peculiar j^ro- 

 perties possessed by certain electric rays, associated with the 

 well-known kathode rays, to which he has given the specific 

 name of " X rays." On looking into the circumstances which 

 led to this discovery, we find that in 1893 an account was 

 published describing the researches in electro-magnetism made 

 by the late Professor Hertz, of Berlin, with a view to an ex- 

 perimental demonstration of electro-magnetic waves. These 

 researches formed the subject of an address read by Lord 

 Kelvin at the opening of the winter session of the Eoyal 

 Society early in 1894, in which he sketched the new horizons 

 that were being opened out by experimenters in England and 

 elsewhere in their further researches on the lines indicated 

 by Hertz, and pointed out that in the results of these further 

 researches lay his hope of obtaining additional knowledge of 

 the relations between what is termed the ether of space and 

 ponderable matter, and the part played by each in the trans- 

 mission of electrical energy. Since the publication of Hertz's 

 work it is no longer contended that electric waves can, any 

 more than any other form of energy, pass through space with- 

 out affecting the intervening medium ; and, although it has not 

 yet been demonstrated what form of strain would be produced 

 upon the ether by these waves, it is conjectured that its mole- 

 cules, if, indeed, the ether consists of molecules, are set into 

 vibration across their line of propagation. Amongst the in- 

 struments used by Hertz in connection with these investiga- 



