210 Dr. Meyer Wilderman : Connexion between the 



bility — or, when light transforms into heat and into the new 

 kinetic energy of the atoms, the ratio of the amount of light 

 transformed into heat to that transformed into atomic motion 

 is not constant. This further leads us to the conclusion 

 that having a system with independent components, i. <?., 

 which do not act one upon another chemically, the new energy 

 of vibrations of the atoms in the molecules, as caused by the 

 light, will for the given conditions gradually arrive at a 

 maximum, after which the light will exert no further addi- 

 tional strain upon the atoms, and the total amount of light 

 which is farther absorbed by the system will completely 

 transform into heat. 



This maximum value of the new kinetic energy, stored in 

 the system at given conditions of equilibrium, is thus for each 

 substance a perfectly definite one. It is for each substance of 

 the system directly proportional to its quantit// or mass in 

 the system, and each of the substances gets its own peculiar 

 new properties of motion, a new additional potential. 



The above conception being most general and fundamental, 

 it requires experimental evidence of an immediate kind : it 

 ought not to depend upon results obtained in a more remote 

 manner only — such as velocity of chemical combination, &c. 

 The author succeeded in procuring such evidence ; two plates 

 of the same metal (tig. 1) connected with the galvanometer 

 and immersed in a conducting liquid, are specially prepared 

 and treated so that the electromotive ™ 



force in the dark is almost zero. One c ' 



of the plates is then exposed to the light, jQV. 



while the other is kept in the dark. A 

 deflexion of the galvanometer is obtained 

 (Becquerel, Minchin, Bose, and my own 

 experiments). These phenomena seemed 

 to be of a very complicated nature, more 

 in the nature of an electrical distur- 

 bance, because as many different curves in shnpe and form 

 were ofctHined as experiments were made ; but after much 

 trouble the author succeeded by more careful arrangement 

 of the experiments, and especially owing to the fortunnte 

 possession of a constant source of light, in reducing the 

 apparently numerous forms of the curves to two forms only, 

 which in reality constitute one, and thus in arriving at 

 the much needed general law, giving their meaning and 

 content. These confirm the above conceptions formed first 

 in order to explain the laws of chemical statics and dynamics 

 in light in all their details, namely : — (1) There is not only 

 an electrical disturbance created by the light which shows 

 itself in all sorts of ways and then, apparently, often dis- 



