LOW-TEMPERATURE RESEARCHES 



at uniform pressure contracts by 1-2 720!. of its own 

 bulk with each successive degree of lowered tempera- 

 ture. If this law held true for all temperatures, the 

 gas would apparently contract to nothingness when the 

 last degree of temperature was reached, or at least to 

 a bulk so insignificant that it would be inappreciable 

 by standards of sense. But it was soon found by the 

 low-temperature experimenters that the law does not 

 hold exactly at extreme temperatures, nor does it ap- 

 ply at all to the rate of contraction which the sub- 

 stance shows after it assumes the liquid and solid con- 

 ditions. So the conception of the disappearance of 

 matter at zero falls quite to the ground. 



But one cannot answer with so much confidence the 

 suggestion that at zero matter may take on properties 

 hitherto quite unknown, and making it, perhaps, differ 

 as much from the conventional solid as the solid differs 

 from the liquid, or this from the gas. The form of vi- 

 bration which produces the phenomena of temperature 

 has, clearly, a determining share in the disposal of mo- 

 lecular relations which records itself to our senses as a 

 condition of gaseousness, liquidity, or solidity ; hence it 

 would be rash to predict just what inter-molecular re- 

 lations may not become possible when the heat- vibra- 

 tion is altogether in abeyance. That certain other 

 forms of activity may be able to assert themselves in 

 unwonted measure seems clearly forecast in the phe- 

 nomena of increased magnetism, and of phosphores- 

 cence at low temperatures above outlined. Whether 

 still more novel phenomena may put in an appearance 

 at the absolute zero, and if so, what may be their nat- 

 ure, are questions that must await the verdict of ex- 



