CHAPTER II. 

 ATOMIC DISINTEGRATION. 



Let us for a moment come to a pause with knowledge to 

 consider what we have already gained without regard to the 

 heights above. 



First, we discovered in Part II, called, " The Mystery of 

 Matter," that the atoms of the elements were so curiously 

 related to one another that any hope of explaining the mys- 

 tery apparently inherent in them lay in the finding of par- 

 ticles smaller than themselves out of which they could be 

 built up. Next, in Part III, called ' ' Gaseous Ions," we dis- 

 covered that such particles, a thousand times smaller than 

 the smallest atom, do actually exist in candle-flames and 

 glowing metals, within the arc-lamps of the street, in the 

 neighbourhood of dynamos, in the presence of X-rays, or on 

 bubbling gas through water. Furthermore, in Part IV, on 

 " Radio-activity," we found these same particles flying off 

 with inconceivable velocity from bodies in their natural 

 normal condition, bodies such as uranium, thorium and 

 radium; and finally we find that the soil and water of 

 the earth itself emits them and that the air we breathe 

 contains them. These little bodies are invariably as- 

 sociated with matter and arise from matter frcm any 

 form of matter under special conditions, and from special 

 forms of matter under any conditions. From whatever 

 source they arise, these corpuscles are similar in all respects 

 with the exception of mere velocity. 

 (150) 



