532 Lord Kelvin: Plan of a Combination of Atoms 
please between the atoms in order to secure stability of the 
group of sixteen. The fourteen electrions will find places of 
stable equilibrium within them, not disturbing at all the 
electrion shown in fig. 1: because they repel it equally in 
opposite directions, and with such small forces that they 
do not render its equilibrium unstable. Thus we have a 
beautifully symmetrical explosive group of fourteen large 
atoms and two small atoms containing in all fifteen electrions 
in positions of stable equilibrium within them. 
Fig. 3.—Neutralizing” preservative guard for Polonium molecules. 
§ 11. The limits of stability of the equilibrium of the 
central electrion and the two small overlapping atoms which 
contain it as shown in fig. 1, are so narrow that a shock of 
a very slight but suitable kind, will produce an explosion 
shooting out these two atoms in opposite directions with 
prodigious velocities, one of them carrying the central elec- 
trion with it. Hach of them will probably shoot through 
the neighbouring guard atom, without carrying its electrion 
away. Thus both of the atoms shot away will be found 
yitreously electrified : one with a quantity 4e of vitreous 
electricity, the other only 3e, because it carries an electrion 
(e of resinous electricity) with it. This agrees perfectly 
with the behaviour which experiment has proved for 
Polonium. 
QE 
