60 THE NEW KNOWLEDGE. 



prodigious. The speed of the swiftest rifle bullet is insig- 

 nificant in comparison. Their velocity is not at all con- 

 stant, for it depends on the electric force with which they 

 are charged, and upon the amount of air left in the vessel; 

 but the corpuscle that does not travel with a speed a thou- 

 sand times that of the swiftest cannon ball, which is two 

 thousand miles an hour, is slow indeed. The only velocity 

 with which the speed of corpuscles can be compared is that 

 of light 186,000 miles a second and corpuscles have been 

 observed with about half this velocity. In fact, the velocity 

 of a corpuscle, depending on the conditions, may be taken 

 as anywhere from 10,000 to CO, 000 miles a second. 



We see, then, that a candle flame, or a glowing wire, or a 

 metal exposed to light, is not by any means the restful 

 object it appears. Every object in the neighborhood of 

 such bodies must be continuously bombarded by bullets 

 flying with an enormous velocity; and small, indeed, must 

 these bullets be to leave us all, so long, utterly unsuspicious 

 of their existence. But small as they are, we must weigh 

 them; and to do this we must first of all derive the value 



