Wakelin. — 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 has 

 been almost lost sight of by our educatioual guides. 



Art. LI. — On Gravitational Experiments. By T. "Wakelin. 

 [Read before the Southland Philosophical Society, 1th October, 1884.] 

 Professor Lodge 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. — If 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. There was no difference 

 in the weight. Eeceiving 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 



