Waxetm.—On Gravitational Experiments. 407 
New Zealand, and if some of the smaller High Schools were closed, and the 
funds now spent upon them were used for the support of technical schools, 
the cause of literary education would not suffer, and our industrial classes 
would have much reason to rejoice. The prime object of education is to fit 
boys and girls for their future walks in life, but this is a fact which aas 
beer almosi lost sight of by our educational guides. 
Art. LI.—On Gravitational Experiments. By T. Waxexin. 
[Read before the Southland Philosophical Society, Tth October, 1884.} 
Proressor Lovee in a recent lecture on the functions of the ether says it 
is inconceivable that the earth should be drawn to the sun without any 
material means, and he ascribes gravitation to some action of the ether. 
A great many scientific men, I feel convinced, sincerely hope that this may 
prove to be the case. I have thought out a number of experiments to test 
this question. Three of these experiments I have carried out but with 
negative results; two of them, however, were carried out in a very in- 
adequate manner. I think an explanation of these and other experiments 
will prove interesting, and perhaps will arouse some hope that this funda- 
mental question in astronomy may be answered. 
First Experiment, Heat.—1f the ether produces the movement called 
gravitation, I thought it probable that any great disturbance of the ether 
should have some effect on the weight of a body placed in the midst of this 
disturbance. It struck me that as a red-hot mass of iron agitated the ether 
the reaction of the ether upon the iron would intensify the gravitational 
effect of the ether and cause the mass to weigh heavier. The molecular 
movement of a heated body would produce alternate increase and relief of 
pressure on the vibrating particle, and I thought it not unlikely that the 
former would be greater than the latter. As the experiment was easy I 
made it, though not with any degree of delicacy. here was no difference 
in the weight. Receiving afterwards Osmond Fisher’s ‘‘ Physics of the 
Earth's Crust” I was agreeably surprised to find in it the following pas- 
sages :—'* However, in a note to an address before the Geological Society 
of Glasgow, 14th February, 1878, Sir W. Thomson wrote: ‘ Since this 
address was delivered some important experiments have been carried out, 
at the request of Dr. Henry Muirhead, by Mr. Joseph Whitley, of Leeds. 
His experiments were made on iron, copper, and brass, and on whinstone 
. and granite; and the general result hitherto arrived at seems to be tha 
