Masterpieces of Science 



professor had been using. There was a table in 

 the left-hand corner; and another small table 

 the one on which living bones were first photo- 

 graphed was near the stove, and a Ruhmkorff 

 coil was on the right. The lesson of the labora- 

 tory was eloquent. Compared, for instance, 

 with the elaborate, expensive, and complete 

 apparatus of, say, the University of London, or 

 of any of the great American universities, it was 

 bare and unassuming to a degree. It mutely 

 said that in the great march of science it is the 

 genius of man, and not the perfection of ap- 

 pliances, that breaks new ground in the great 

 territory of the unknown. It also caused one 

 to wonder at and endeavour to imagine the great 

 things which are to be done through elaborate 

 appliances with the Rontgen rays a field in 

 which the United States, with its foremost genius 

 in invention, will very possibly, if not probably, 

 take the lead when the discoverer himself had 

 done so much with so little. Already, in a few 

 weeks, a skilled London operator, Mr. A. A. C. 

 Swinton, has reduced the necessary time of ex- 

 posure for Rontgen photographs from fifteen 

 minutes to four. He .used, however, a Tesla oil 

 coil, discharged by twelve half-gallon Ley den 

 jars, with an alternating current of twenty thou- 

 sand volts' pressure. Here were no oil coils, 

 Ley den jars, or specially elaborate and expensive 

 machines. There were only a Ruhmkorff coil 

 and Crookes (vacuum) tube and the man him- 

 self. 



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