INTRA-ATOMIC ENERGY. 267 



this energy tbat the radio-active phenomena .show sucli intensity. It 

 is this which causes the emission of particles endowed with an immense 

 velocity, phosphorescence and the production of an enormous <[uantity 

 of electricity, out of proportion to that which we can maintain upon 

 insulated bodies. 



The o-reat velocity of the particles discharoed into space under the 

 influence of the energy lil)erated in the atom would be of itself a proof 

 that we are in the presence of an entirelj' new force. It is only in 

 vil)rations of the ether that a velocity comparable to this has hitherto 

 been observed, and there we readily explain it b}' the almost perfect 

 elasticity of the medium. No analogous explanation can ])e invoked 

 for the projections of the particles. 



X rays also are one of the indirect manifestations of intra-atomic 

 energy, a new stage of its manifestation. 



A form of energy ma}" be declared new when it is dift'erentiated ))y 

 its fundamental characters from all those previously known. 



We do not yet know all the possible transformations of this new 

 mode of energy, but we are alread}' convinced as to its origin. We 

 know that it comes from matter, since we can not produce it without 

 matter. We know also that when it is once formed it is no longer 

 matter, since it has lost all material characters, and that it can not 

 again become matter by any process. 



Before an assemblage of facts as conclusive and clear as these, it 

 seems impossible to admit an}" hypothesis other than this: Here is an 

 entirely new mode of energy having no relation to any of those hitherto 

 observed. 



The origin of intra-atomic energy is not entirely inexplicable if we 

 admit, with astronomers, that the condensation of a nebula sufficed, b}" 

 itself alone, to produce the considerable temperature possessed by the 

 sun. It may be conceived that an analogous condensation of the ether 

 may have generated the energies contained in the atom. We may 

 roughly compare the latter to a sphere in which a n()idi(}uetial)lc gas 

 was compressed by some billions of atmospheres at the time of the 

 origin of the world. 



Section ^.—PcnviV of the I utra-atomie forces- — Maiti r consid, red d.s an 

 enormous condensation of energy. 



GREAT AMOUNT OF INTRA-ATOMIC ENEKOV. 



The great energy manifested in radio-active phenomena has pro- 

 foundly impressed physicists, and for a long time past they have been 

 seeking its origin. One of them recently observed that the complete 

 dissociation of a gram of radium would produce sufficient energy to 

 transport the entire P^nglish flei^t to the summit of ]\Iont Blanc. 



