although the manganese oxide is entirely unchanged, its presence renders 

 the liberation of oxygen easy and copious at about 200° F., where in its 

 absence a heat sufficient to melt the chlorate would be required. An- 

 other example is found in the case of sulphuric acid, used with heat, to 

 -effect the metamorphosis of starch into glucose. These examples, it is 

 true, are instances of decomposition, and only inversely related to attrac- 

 tion; but they show the power of ether- waves, complementary to the 

 atomic motions of contiguous bodies, to affect the strength of existmg 

 attractions — they are cases of the inverse of the proposition to be demon- 

 strated. Second, the influence or condition called the nascent state on 

 chemical combination, e. g. the easy combination of carbon and nitro- 

 gen with hydrogen, when liberated simultaneously in the destructive 

 distillation, or spontaneous decay of organic matter; in contrast to the 

 fact that they do not combine when mixed in the gaseous state. The 

 •considerations adduced herein when treating of the obstacles presented 

 by mixed gases to chemical union, on the one hand; and the fact that 

 the atom of nitrogen, e. g. must have a slightly different rate and figure 

 of vibration from the molecule of the same substance in a gaseous con- 

 dition; lead us to see that, while the atom may very easily combine 

 with carbon and hydrogen, the molecule, from its different rate and 

 mode, and therefore different wave, may and does not. 



The explanation which Liebig suggested as the cause and nature of 

 fermentation is in point here. He imagined that when certain ferments 

 {by which, however, he did not mean the same thing as Pasteur describes 

 under that name) in the act of undergoing change (decomposition) were 

 in contact with neutral ternary compounds of slight stability {because built 

 tip of many atoms and there foj'e having a highly complex motio?i ayid 

 wave figure — G. P.) as sugar, the molecular disturbance of the decom- 

 posing ferment was propagated (by ether waves — G P.) to the sugar, 

 and wrought destruction of the equilibrium of forces (destruction of the 

 special composite motion — G. P.) to which it owed its being. 



Third, the action of light (ether- waves) on the combination of atoms, 

 €. g. in plants, etc., and on the decomposition of certain salts. Fourth, 

 going outside of chemistry and taking an example from zoologv, it ex- 

 plains the order and the reason therefor in which birds of passage — ducks 

 and geese — arrange themselves in flight, viz., in lines oblique to the 

 line of progress. Certain points in the air-wave caused by the move- 

 ments of the leader are more fitted to sustain the succeeding bird in its 

 flight, e. g. the crest rather than the trough of the wave. Doubtless 

 the same condition of affairs, substituting ether-wave for air-wave, de- 

 termines the various forms of crystallization assumed by different sub- 

 stances. 



There are other chemical facts which will probably be illustrated and 



