250 THE NEW KNOWLEDGE. 



case of radio-active bodies. We have learned that the mass 

 of a corpuscle is dependent on its velocity and this indicates 

 that the mass of the radium atom before its explosive re- 

 arrangement would not be the same as the mass of the 

 products of its disintegration for the velocities of its cor- 

 puscles have changed. This can only be determined by 

 looking for a change of weight in a quantity of radium kept 

 under such conditions that the products of disintegration 

 cannot escape. It will take time to determine this question. 



Since all atoms are corpuscular aggregates and are there- 

 fore liable to changes of energy we should expect to find 

 minute changes of weight in ordinary materials and this 

 expectation is borne out by certain researches notably those 

 of Heydweiler and Wallace. 



Heydweiler claims that copper sulphate and water do not 

 have the same collective weight before and after solution. 

 Wallace claims that a mass of water does not have the same 

 weight before and after freezing. Altogether, both from 

 theoretical and experimental considerations the absolute 

 validity of the law of the conservation of mass is certainly 

 challenged. 



The Ether: Page 4. 



The ether is what it was the hypothetical, but none the 

 less believed in, medium of extreme tenuity and elasticity 

 diffused throughout all space, the medium for the trans- 

 mission of radiant energy. Recently, however, Mendeleeff, 

 the doyen of chemical science, has originated the concep- 

 tion that the ether instead of being some mysterious form of 

 non-matter as generally believed is actually the lightest and 

 the simplest of the elements, and a definite form of matter. 

 He believes it to be one of the inactive gases of the Argon 

 family of elements and he assigns to it the position x in the 

 Zero Group of his revised periodic arrangement of the 



