MOTION WITHIN ATOMS. 17 



instinctive motion, which shows itself 

 especially as attraction and repulsion, as if 

 they were minute magnets. 7 It is this 

 innate power that makes them move freely 

 about amongst one another, and forces 

 them to be in constant movement, never 

 to be at rest even in the most compact 

 substance, but always in motion, attracting 

 and repelling each other with great force, 

 with force so great that it has earned for 

 itself such names as " The bombardment of 

 atoms," " The rhythmic swing of the atoms," 

 " The eternal dance of the atoms," " The 

 polarity of the atoms," " The life of the 

 atoms," and similar designations ; and with 



7 " How atoms may be magnets and exhibit polarity, 

 may be imagined by considering the phenomena of vortex 

 rings." DOLBEAR, p. 203. 



" The evidence that the atoms are such magnets does not 

 rest upon the necessity of the conception for the hypo- 

 thesis; but upon much confirmatory experiment that has 

 led physicists to the conclusion that they are such .... 

 for all that is implied in the above is that whatever their 

 form and substance they are magnets." DOLBEAR, p. 255. 



" The vibrations of the atomic magnet are rapid because 

 it is small ; the waves it produces are changes in its mag- 

 netic field in the ether, so that one may trace back in this 

 manner the phenomena of light, of heat ? and electricity 

 to the mechanical structure of atoms ; and it is mechanically 

 intelligible too, and, like the preceding accounts of proper- 

 ties, it appears, that magnetic and electric qualities are due 

 to the peculiar kinds of motion embodied in the atoms" 

 DOLBEAR, p. 345. 



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