132 Prof. W. E. Ayrton on the Electrical 



5. The secondary points of incipient condensation, — (2), 



r 



are all referable, through the simple accumulation of vis viva, 

 to primary mean aphelia. 



6. The significance of the fourth accordance is increased by 

 Stockwell's discovery* that " the mean motion of Jupiter's 

 node on the invariable plane is exactly equal to that of Saturn, 

 and the mean longitudes of these nodes differ by exactly 180°." 



7. Gummere's criterion confirms the theory of Democritus, 

 that the evolution of worlds was due to a vortical movement, 

 which was generated by the descent of the heavier atoms 

 through the lighter. 



XVIII. The Electrical Properties of Bees' -wax and Lead Chlo- 

 ride. By "W. E. Ayrton, Professor in the Imperial College 

 of Engineering, Tokio } Japan]. 

 LPlate II.] 



IN the two papers by Prof. Perry and myself on Ice as an 

 Electrolyte, recently read before the Physical Society, 

 we showed that both the conductivity and specific inductive 



capacity of -J t , - > increases regularly, without discon- 

 tinuity, in passing from several degrees below the freezing 

 point to several degrees above it. We drew attention to the 

 fact that, in consequence of the absorbed charge in water 

 being immeasurably greater than the surface-charge, we 

 could not hope, by any method of experimenting, to properly 

 compare the true specific inductive capacity with the index 

 of refraction for light of infinitely long waves ; so that, in 

 fact, the only support that Prof. C. Maxwell's electromagnetic 

 theory of light could hope to derive from these experiments 



must be based simply on the fact that in ■< , , > both the 



specific inductive capacity and the index of refraction increase 

 as the temperature rises. At the meeting of the Society on 

 November 3rd, at which the second of our two papers was read, 

 Prof. G. Foster mentioned that he had recently been collecting 

 all the results he could find connecting specific inductive 

 capacity with index of refraction. I therefore beg to forward, 

 as a contribution to this collection, the following results of 

 some further experiments which I have been making on this 

 subject. 



* Loc. cit. 



t Communicated by the Physical Society. 



