290 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



theory of luminosity must be looked at from a more 

 detailed point of view than that in which the kinetic 

 theory is generally regarded, which has no special 

 reference to physical foundations and the concep- 

 tions involved therein. Stoney's paper " On the 

 Kinetic Theory of Gases, as illustrating Nature " 

 {Proc. Roy. Duhl. Soc, 1895), is of great critical 

 value and importance in its bearing upon some of 

 these questions. 



The energy which we know is stored up in 

 a gas and may be given out in certain circum- 

 stances is that to which chemical combinations and 

 explosions can be attributed. An enormous amount 

 of energy may be stored up in the atom with- 

 out any account being taken of it in the kinetic 

 theory. The rotations too rapid to be radiated, 

 assuming the aether to have a molecular struc- 

 ture, must be the sources of several phenomena 

 when those rotations are slowed down by the 

 approach of a corpuscle to the molecular system. 



When the rotations exceed a certain limit, the 

 body becomes radio-active and shoots off an elec- 

 tron or a corpuscle. And this would be accom- 

 panied in some cases with a non-deflectable but 

 highly penetrating radiation, namely the ultra- 

 ultra-violet, very rapid vibrations which may ap- 

 proach the limit of the frequencies that the aether 

 can transmit. 



The phosphorescence then results from the colli- 

 sion of the corpuscles with the concentrated groups 

 or aggregates of molecules. The a rays are shot 



