376 [Proc. B.N.F.C, 



But more heat in the running* ub of temperature is, perhaps, 

 not the power by which chemical elements will ever be 

 decomposed and reveal to us that primitive protoplasm out 

 of which they have been built up. You observe that all 

 experimentalists speak of Vibrations as existing in both chemical 

 compounds and chemical elements. The elements are considered 

 to be in a state of intense vibration even in the most seemingly 

 solid of substances. This, of course, is not a new view ; but 

 there are new views connected with this doctrine of Vibrations. 

 There is a force which we might venture to call the Generic 

 force, of which heat is only one of the species, it is called the 

 force of Sympathetic Vibrations. 



Tyndall in his book on " Sound" has a part devoted to this 

 subject of " Sympathetic Vibrations" and in the course of his 

 beautiful illustrations of it he uses this one — " Holding a 

 vigourously vibrating tuning fork in my hand, I bring one of 

 its prongs near an unvibrating one, placing the prongs back to 

 back but leaving a space of air between them. The perfect 

 unison of the two forks enables the one to set the other into 

 Vibration. And although we stop the sound of the fork we 

 had struck, the other, which a moment ago was silent, continues 

 to sound, having taken up the Vibrations of its neighbour." 



In operating this law of Sympathetic Vibration, Keely, of 

 Philadelphia, in his researches and inventions, has made a 

 vibrating apparatus by which he can produce very intense 

 velocity of vibrations ; and by bringing this silent musical 

 apparatus into action he has accomplished the decomposition of 

 chemical elements with a view of obtaining the latent force 

 aggregated in the course of their construction by the great 

 Builder of all things, that he might use it in running the 

 machinery of his workshop, and with the anticipation of giving 

 these hidden forces to the world for the use of man in travelling, 

 and in mechanical operations. Professor Fitzgerald, of Dublin, 

 who is acquainted with Keely 's labours and discovery, says : — 

 " We seem to be approaching the theory of the constitution of 

 the Ether? Professor Hertz has produced vibrations vibrating 



