Energy and Ether. 1031 



( Sound travels in hydrogen about four times as fast as in air, which 

 is generally explained to be because hydrogen is so much lighter than 

 air. Air is 14 times as heavy as hydrogen. But it travels faster in 

 water than in Irydrogen, and water is 11,160 times as heavy as hydro- 

 gen, and it travels in iron about 15 times as fast as in air, while iron is 

 81,500 times as heavy as hydrogen!) 



A comparison between the action of the telephone and that of the 

 natural ear shows not merely analogy but virtual identity. But it is 

 the same if we consider any sonorous body. When a bell rings, the 

 stroke of the hammer sets up a vibration in the metallic particles of 

 the bell, and at the same time the ether of the hammer hurled into the 

 field of that of the bell creates a corresponding disturbance there. 

 Both these disturbances carried side by side through the air, reach the 

 auditory nerve. It is hard to tell just what becomes of the energy of 

 the vibrations of the ponderable bodies, whether they assist the action 

 of the nerve or are reduced to heat; but it is reasonably certain that 

 the movement of the ether terminating in the final cells of the auditory 

 ganglions of the brain constitute there the sensation of sound. Thus, 

 it is the pulsatory motion of the ether in the bell that sets up a corre- 

 sponding motion of sound in the brain; as it is an undulatory motion 

 of the ether reflected from the outside of the bell that sets up the corre- 

 sponding sensations of sight by which we learn its form. If the bell 

 be hot, as when first cast, we get a knowledge of that also by the undu- 

 lations set up by its agitation in its surrounding ether, and the possible 

 participation of the intervening air in this effect is seen to be incidental 

 and not essential to our sensation of heat. 



Ether and Smell. I propose also to introduce this hypothetical con- 

 densed ether into the theory of smell, taste, touch, and chemical reac- 

 tions generally. Smell depends upon the fact that infinitessimal par- 

 ticles of a volatile body are cast off, and riding through the air, alight 

 on the pituitary membrane, and there set up a chemical action which 

 produces a nervous current to the brain, which ending, in turn, becomes 

 the sensation of smell. Now on the hypothesis that each particle is 

 surrounded and permeated by its quota of condensed ether, we may 

 suppose a repulsive movement of a chemical or electrical nature to 

 drive off a portion of this ether which carries off with it the delicate 

 I article of its volatile associate. Upon reaching the pituitary mem- 

 brane, the adventitious ether sets up a disturbance of that belonging to 

 the organ, which results in a current up the olfactory nerve. The oper- 

 ation here is apparently analogous to that which results in sound. We 

 have oLe action of a connected succession of the ethereal substance all 

 the way from the odorous body to the olfactory lobe. 



In Touch and Taste too, the same principle is involved, the disturb- 



