RECENT ELECTRICAL DISCOVERIES 113 



it begins in flying off in all directions. It condenses 

 into very minute particles which, by reason of the 

 impulsion or pressure of the sun's rays, are thrown 

 in the opposite direction from the sun. 



My explanation has been, without all this detail, 

 that it was the same law of electric repulsion 

 which drove the comet off and prevented it falling 

 into the sun, which also drove the comet's tail in 

 an opposite direction from the sun. 



This solution of the comet's tail does not solve 

 the greater one of the repulsion of the comet itself. 

 The pressure of the electric ions or corpuscles might 

 force the tail away, but a greater electric force 

 from the sun drives off the comet. 



Prof. J. J. Thomson and Arrhenius, a Swedish 

 physicist, have by experiments discovered and elab- 

 orated the manner and principles on which the ions 

 or corpuscles operate. Arrhenius discovered that 

 these ions were conductors of electricity and why, 

 and Prof. Thomson discovered each corpuscle had 

 the same electric charge as an ion of hydrogen, 

 and that each must be smaller than a hydrogen 

 atom in fact only a thousandth part of it. 



And here for the first time in the world's history 

 science tells us there are bodies smaller than an 

 atom a thousand times smaller than an atom. 

 We are told an atom is a thousand times smaller 

 than the particles of invisible air we breath ; now 

 we have an ion a thousand times smaller than the 

 atom. Surely the scientists have at last reached 

 my theory of the fourth state of matter which I 

 call the electro-magnetic. In fact these ions or 

 corpuscles may be electricity itself or the atoms 

 of electricity which science has at last discovered. 

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