252 ROCHESTER ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. [Feb. 26, 



such results, and the further question as to the manner in which these 

 motions are sustained. With our present knowledge it seems prefer- 

 able to assume as the starting point the existence of properties inher- 

 ent in the atoms and independent of motion of any sort. To do 

 otherwise than this is to resolve not only the properties of matter but 

 matter itself into a question of wave length, the very existence of 

 matter being unthinkable apart from that of its properties. In all 

 reasonings something must be taken for granted as ultimate. In this 

 case it is the existence of matter and of its properties, among which 

 are those that characterize electrical action. 



If the ether have electrical properties, the evidence is clear that 

 they differ from those of matter which fit it to become a conducting 

 medium. It is possible that light waves may excite some species of 

 electrical action in the ether of space just as they do when falling 

 upon material atoms. So on the other hand electrical action brought 

 to bear upon any part of the ether of space may modify the light waves 

 in that location. It is true that light has electro-magnetic relations 

 which are a proper subject of investigation. The modification of 

 light waves consisting in what has been termed their electro-mag- 

 netic rotation, which may perhaps depend upon certain electrical 

 properties of the ether, does not transform them into anything else 

 than light waves. They do not transmit anything except vibratory 

 motions which may have electrical effects upon the ether of space and 

 material atoms, but which do not transfer electrical energy from one 

 locality to another. Ether pulsations produce only very strictly 

 localized and small disturbances of electrical equilibrium in the atoms 

 exposed to their direct impulses. In order so to do they do not 

 deplete any source of supply, nor originate any bipolar system of 

 arrangement of force, or in other words do not become a conducting 

 medium in any sense of that term. Their mode of action is that of 

 electrical excitation and not of conduction. The energy developed 

 by a dynamo or concentrated in a storage battery finds no outlet by 

 radiation. Not all the power of the sun itself could produce an elec- 

 trical charge strong enough to be conveyed by radiation. It is not 

 strange that those who incline to the ether wave theory of transmission 

 of electrical energy hesitate to admit the solar origin of magnetic 

 storms. 



The transmission of electrical energy by conduction, on the other 

 hand, is accomplished with the utmost facility. Telegraphic signals 

 have been conveyed across the Atlantic by means of a proper con- 



