744 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 307. 



until some one suggests a better name, we 

 will call etlieron, taking the place of the 

 ' fiUing-in material.'* The compressibility 

 of the etheron is very high, as we have seen, 

 it being the thing which determines the ve- 

 locity of the compressive wave. The vortex 

 structure is what is concerned in transmit- 

 ting the light waves and its modulus ; the 

 rigidity modulus is much smaller and of a 

 different order, j ust as in the case of India 

 rubber. 



We do not need more than one vortex, 

 ' the umbilical cord of the universe,' as one 

 aspect of it suggested itself, stretching with 

 its .ends fixed on some free surface of the 

 etheron and itself forming one inextrica- 

 ble tangle. The circulation being the same 

 everywhere simplifies matters. The part- 

 ing of the vortex anywhere means the de- 

 struction of all matter. 



Such a medium, as Fitzgerald has shown, 

 gives an ether which can transmit light. 

 Following up this theory, we conclude that 

 corpuscles are vortex singularities, and that 

 it is the hydrodynamic head of their flow 

 which gives the etheron density- variation 

 round them. This change in density varies 

 as the fourth power of the distance from the 

 corpuscle. All the gravitational energy 

 tends to that of compression, and if two cor- 

 puscles come together, their gravitational 

 energy goes to increasing the compression 

 energy of the ether. They do not come to- 

 gether because their approach brings into 

 play forces which depend upon the energy 

 of the vortices themselves. The fact that 

 there is but one vortex, and consequently 

 the circulation is the same everywhere, 

 gives the atoms definite sizes and the cor- 

 puscles the same quantity of electricity, 

 i. e. , the ionic charge. 



A group of 80 many thousands of these 

 corpuscles makes up the atom. The inertia 

 of the atom is due to the electromagnetic 



* Ether is the structure formed by the fluid and the 

 vortices, etheion the fluid alone. 



inductance of the corpuscular charge, and 

 gravity is due to the change of density of 

 the ether surrounding the corpuscles, pro- 

 duced by the electrostatic stress of the 

 corpuscular charge. Mass and gravity thus 

 bear a constant ratio. 



The cohesive force of the atoms, as I have 

 shown elsewhere,* is due to the electro- 

 static attraction of the atoms for one an- 

 other. Chemical force, as has been shown 

 by Davy, Berzeliu8,Helmholtz, Ostwald and 

 other workers, is due to the same cause. 



It may here be noted that the idea of the 

 ionic charge as an ever-present element of 

 the atom is an interesting example of a 

 theory, negatived absolutely, apparently, by 

 fundamental principles, and yet develop- 

 ing in spite of its apparent incompatibility 

 with facts in many other directions, with 

 such success as to finally obtain a firm foot- 

 ing, although the arguments against it have 

 never been answered. 



The fact that the ionic charge is the agent 

 in chemical action had been shown by the 

 physicists just mentioned above. The pres- 

 ence of charged ions in electrolj'tes had also 

 been firmly established, and J. J. Thomson 

 had suggested that conduction in metals 

 also took place through a breaking up of 

 molecular groups, as in the case of electro- 

 lytes. But when in 1890 and 1891 f I in- 

 troduced the theory that the ionic charge 

 is attached to the atom, not only when it 

 is concerned in chemical actions or formed part 

 of a molecule, but in every case and always, 

 and is the cause of a number of phys- 

 ical phenomena, such as cohesion, rig- 

 idity, etc., a number of objections were 

 made ; that charges could not exist in the 

 interior of a conductor ; that the atoms of 

 metals must be conducting, and so could 

 not have equal charges of electricity ; and 

 others, as for example, the well founded 



*Elect. Soc, Newark, 1890 ; Elect. World, Aug. 8- 

 22, 1891. 

 t Ibid. 



