ELECTRIC OSCILLATIONS AND ELECTRIC WAVES. 253 



causing A and B to discharge. This discharge, however, is 

 usually oscillatory like the movements of a spring which is 

 pulled to one side and suddenly released, as follows : Consider a 

 chain of geared ether cells which when undistorted lies along the 

 dotted line in Fig. 1 84, this dotted line being everywhere per- 

 pendicular to the lines of force of the electric field. When A 

 is positively charged this chain is distorted as shown (in part), but, 

 inasmuch as it is a closed chain, its distortion is fixed, as ex- 

 plained in connection with Fig. 182. When a spark is formed 

 across the air gap, however, a line of slip is established across the 

 distorted chain, and the distortion disappears as explained in Art. 

 141. What is said of the single chain of ether cells is true of 

 every chain which surrounds A or B. 



If the slip which relieves the distortion of the chain of ether 

 cells takes place with great friction (high electrical resistance of 

 conducting path formed by the spark), the cells near the spark 

 begin turning slowly and the entire energy of the distorted chain 

 is geared into the gap and converted at once into heat. If the 

 slip which relieves the distortion of the chain of ether cells is 

 almost frictionless (low electrical resistance of the conducting path 

 formed by the spark), then the energy of the distorted chain is 

 used mostly in overcoming the inertia of the cells as they are set 

 rotating, and after a very short interval of time the whole of the 

 electrical energy will have been converted into kinetic energy of the 

 rotating cells (magnetic energy). During this conversion the 

 energy, streaming along the dotted lines in Fig. 184, largely dis- 

 appears from the regions ee and ee, and is distributed mainly in 

 the region mm. When the chain of ether cells has been relieved 

 from distortion, the rotatory motion of the ether cells in the region 

 mm will have reached a maximum, and the cells will continue to 

 rotate because of their momenta, thus producing a reversed distor- 

 tion of each chain of ether cells. At the same time the energy 

 will stream back from the region mm to the regions ee and ee, 

 being converted again into potential energy of ether distortion, and 

 the balls A and B will be charged in a reversed sense. This re- 



