THE INORGANIC WORLD 31 



pipe or in the vapour from the funnel of an engine, or 

 from the smoke in firing a cannon, etc.), shows how it is 

 conceivably possible that they can be formed in ether. 

 " If such a ring could be produced in a material not 

 subject to friction, none of the motion it possesses could 

 be dissipated, and we should have a permanent structure, 

 possessing several properties, such as definite dimensions, 

 volume, elasticity, attraction, and so on, all due to the 

 shape and motions involved." ^ 



" Imagine, then, that vortex-rings were in some way 

 formed in the ether, constituted of ether. If the ether be, 

 as it is generally believed to be, frictionless, then such a 

 thing would persist indefinitely : it would have just that 

 quality of durability that atoms seem to possess." 



" It may be asked how one vortex-ring can differ 

 from another, so that there could be so many as seventy 

 or more different kinds of atoms [elements]. To this it 

 may be said that such rings may differ from each other 

 not only in size but in their rates of rotation ; the ring may 

 be a thick one or a thin one, may rotate relatively fast or 

 slow, may contain a greater or less amount of the ether." ^ 



"Motion is the chief characteristic of matter. Chemists 

 have discovered that both the chemical and physical 

 properties of all kinds of matter are functions of their 

 mass or relative atomic weights, and that they may be 

 arranged in a harmonic series. Harmonic relations may 

 imply relations either of position or of motion. But the 

 fundamental properties of matter do not change by a 

 change of its position, and one is therefore led to the 

 conclusion that one must look to the various kinds of 

 motion involved among atoms for the explanation of all 

 their properties and all their phenomena." 



1 op. cif., p. 39. 20/. cit., pp. 40, 41. 



