572 REPORT— 1886. 



•element) from these different sources behave diflerently to the radiant-matter test ? 

 To the chemist hitherto the earth yttria has been the same thing- and has possessed 

 the same properties, whatever its source ; hut armed with this new power of seeing 

 into the atomic groupings which go to make up yttrium, we find evidence of 

 differentiation between one yttrium and another. 



Thus when the samarskite yttrium was formed all the constituent atoms— deep 

 red, red, orange, citron, greenish-blue, and blue ' — condensed together in fair pro- 

 portion, the deep red being faintest. In gadolinite yttrium the citron and greenish- 

 iblue constituents are plentiful, the red is very deficient, the orange is absent, and 

 the others occur in moderate quantities. In the yttrium from xenotime the citron 

 is most plentiful, the greenish-blue occui-s in smaller proportion, the red is all but 

 absent, and the orange is quite absent. Yttrium from monazite contains the 

 greenish-blue and citron, with a fair proportion of the other constituents ; the 

 greenish-blue is plentiful, and the red is good. Yttrium from fluocerite is very 

 similar to that fi"om monazite, but the blue is weaker. Y^ttrium from hielmite is 

 very rich in citron, has a fair quantity of blue and greenish-blue, less of red, no 

 orange, and only a very faint trace of deep red. Yttria from euxenite is almost 

 identical with that from hielmite. Y'^ttria from cerite contains most red and citron, 

 a. fair amount of orange, less greenish-blue and blue, and only a trace of deep red. 



This is unlikely to be an isolated case. The principle is very probably of 

 general application to all the elements. In some, possibly in all elements, the 

 whole spectrum does not emanate from all its atoms, but difl'erent spectral rays may 

 come from difierent atoms, and in the spectrum as we see it all these partial 

 spectra are present together. This being interpreted means that there are definite 

 differences in the internal motions which go on in the several groups of which 

 the atoms of a chemical element consist. For example, we must now be prepared 

 for some such events as that the seven series of bands in the absorption-spectrum 

 ■of iodine may prove not all to emanate from every molecule, but that some of 

 these molecules emit some of these series, others others, and in the jumble of all 

 these kinds of molecules, to which is given the name ' iodine vapour,' the whole 

 eeven series are contributors. 



To me it appears the theory I have here ventured to formulate, taken in con- 

 junction with the diagram in fig. 1, may aid the scientific imagination to proceed 

 a step or two further in the order of elemental evolution. In the undulating 

 curve may be seen the action of two forces, one acting in the direction of the 

 vertical fine, and the other pulsating backwards and forwards like a pendulum. 

 Assume the vertical line to represent temperature slowly sinking through an 

 unknown number of degrees, from the dissociation- point of the first-formed element 

 down to the dissociation-point of those last shown on the scale. But what form 

 of energy is represented by the oscillating line? .Swinging to and fro like a 

 mighty pendulum to points equidistant from a neutral centre ; the divergence from 

 TieutraUty conferring atomicity of one, two, three, and four degrees as the distance 

 from the centre is one, two, three, or four divisions; and the approach to, or 

 retreat from, the neutral line deciding the electro-negative or electro-positive 

 character of the element — all on the retreating half of the swing being positive and 

 all on the approaching half negative — this oscillating force must be intimately 

 connected with the imponderable matter, essence, or source of energy we call 

 electricity. 



Let us examine this a little more closeh'. Let us start at the moment when 

 the first element came into existence. Before this time matter, as we know it, 

 was not. It is equally impossible to conceive of matter without energy, as of 

 energy without matter ; from one point of view the two are convertible terms. 

 Before the birth of atoms all those forms of energy which become evident when 

 matter acts upon matter could not have existed — they were locked up in the 

 protyle as latent potentialities only. Coincident with the creation of atoms all 

 those attributes and properties which form the means of discriminating one 

 chemical element from another start into existence fully endowed with energy. 



' For brevity I call them by their dominant spectrum band. 



