ACTION* AT A DISTANCE. 



Fooeault's experiments, is 298 millions of metres per second. In fact, the different 

 determinations of either velocity differ from each other more than the estimated 

 velocity of light doe* from the estimated velocity of propagation of small electro- 

 magnetic disturbance. But if the luminiferous and the electro-magnetic media 

 occupy the same place, and transmit disturbances with the same velocity, what 

 nuinn have we to distinguish the one from the other? By considering them 

 as the same, we avoid at least the reproach of filling space twice over with 

 different kinds of tether. 



Besides this, the only kind of electro-magnetic disturbances which can be 

 propagated through a non-conducting medium is a disturbance transverse to the 

 direction of propagation, agreeing in this respect with what we know of that 

 disturbance which we call light. Hence, for all we know, light also may be an 

 electro-magnetic disturbance in a non-conducting medium. If we admit this, the 

 electro-magnetic theory of light will agree in every respect with the undulatory 

 theory, and the work of Thomas Young and Fresnel will be established on a 

 firmer basis than ever, when joined with that of Cavendish and Coulomb by 

 the key-stone of the combined sciences of light and electricity Faraday's great 

 discovery of the electro-magnetic rotation of light. 



The vast interplanetary and interstellar regions will no longer be regarded 

 as waste places in the universe, which the Creator has not seen fit to fill with 

 the symbols of the manifold order of His kingdom. We shall find them to be 

 already full of this wonderful medium ; so full, that no human power can remove 

 it from the smallest portion of space, or produce the slightest flaw in its 

 infinite' continuity. It extends unbroken from star to star ; and when a molecule 

 of hydrogen vibrates in the dog-star, the medium receives the impulses of these 

 vibrations ; and after carrying them in its immense bosom for three years, 

 delivers them in due course, regular order, and full tale into the spectroscope 

 t Mr Muggins, at Tulse HilL 



But the medium has other functions and operations besides bearing light 

 from man to man, and from world to world, and giving evidence of the absolute 

 unity of the metric system of the universe. Its minute parts may have rotatory 

 as well as vibratory motions, and the axes of rotation form those lines of 

 magnetic force which extend in unbroken continuity into regions which no eye 

 has seen, and which, by their action on our magnets, are telling us in language 

 not yet interpreted, what is going on in the hidden underworld from minute 

 to minute and from century to century. 



