1904-5.] Mr J. Fraser on Electricity based on Bubble Atom. 703 
with the negative their particles gain, or borrow, speed from the 
latter, and are thus made positive and the latter negative. To 
put it in another way, hydrogen and the metals before combina- 
tion with the components of their compounds are really negative, 
they being dense and small in proportion to mass, or atomic 
weight, and consequently having a relatively small quantity of 
electricity, and when they enter into combination with the 
opposite kind, which are possessed of a greater quantity, they 
deprive them of a part, and so become positive and the others 
negative. 
30. In uniting with the opposite kind, oxygen, and the 
negative elements generally, i.e. those whose particles part with 
momentum, partially collapse as a result of some of their motion 
being given up to the opposite kind. The energy of position of 
the particles lost through the collapse of the atom would be taken 
up in enlarging, as a soap bubble is enlarged by blowing into it, 
the hydrogen, or positive element, and both atoms would he 
flattened at their point of union, as a result of their radiation of 
heat upon union. 
When oxygen and hydrogen unite to form steam, it seems to me 
that the hydrogen atom is enlarged till its surface density is equal 
to that of the oxygen. At this point each atom would be 
possessed of a quantity of electricity proportional to their masses, 
and evidently also to their surfaces, and of total energy pro- 
portional to the space which they occupied. For the hydrogen 
being smaller would, in the excursions of the molecules through 
this space, suffer fewer impingements, and thus a less quantity of 
the electricity of the hydrogen would he converted into heat and 
a greater proportion be available to electrify its domain, so that 
both the oxygen and hydrogen would electrify their domain 
equally, and the molecules would he neutral. It seems evident 
that when they share their electricity in proportion to their 
masses, their “attractions” or “affinities” must be satisfied, for 
at this point they have the same “centrifugal force,” they act on 
the ether equally, and it reacts equally upon them. Well, then, 
taking oxygen and hydrogen as our example, when they are 
satisfied with one another, the oxygen atom must have four times 
the radius of that of the hydrogen, with, of course, 64 times 
