226 
THE BORDERLAND OE CHEMISTRY AND ELECTRICITY. 
With regard to the ether, which is not yet developed in a visible 
form, it is undoubtedly intimately connected with life. I again thank 
you for your very kind attention (loud applause). 
The Chairman : Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure from your applause 
that my anticipations as regards the lecture have been quite fulfilled ; 
Mr. Webster has taken us a very pleasant journey along this border¬ 
land. The worst I may put it of listening to such a finished lecture 
as his is that we are apt to go away and think that we know all about 
the subject. That I am afraid cannot be done in such a short time ; 
but I am sure you will agree with me that Mr. Webster has in a short 
time given us a large amount of subject for thinking about, and I 
hope also he has excited our curiosity so that many of us will extend 
our knowledge of the sciences that he has brought before us. 
Mr. Webster has mentioned one or two things in his lecture which 
I should like to say a word about. 
There was that question of mind telegraphy. I know that scientific 
people are very apt to say that everything they cannot understand (I 
am afraid Mr. Webster says that what he cannot see he does not 
believe in) is not all true ; still there is a very scientific man, Professor 
Crookes, who is certainly a believer in these things, and has been for a 
long time, for I met him many years ago on a sea voyage ; but I was 
told the other day of an actual case in which a man and his wife 
arranged all their plans while they were hundreds of miles apart from 
one another. You cannot say that they have not done so if you find 
that they have, so there must be something in it at all events. 
The other question which I think is a very interesting one is that in 
which Mr. Webster told us about the marvellous photography of the 
stars ; that every day astronomers are photographing stars which 
the human eye will never see. We can hardly realise it; but 
it was brought to my mind very clearly by a photograph that I saw of 
a cellar. The cellar was absolutely dark to the human eye; you might be 
there an hour and not see one part of it. They exposed the camera 
with a plate in it for three weeks—it was a very long exposure—but 
at the end of that time a perfect photograph of that cellar was pro¬ 
duced, every little brick in it was re-produced. It is exactly the 
same thing in these star photographs every night; the human eye 
never can and never will see them them, but there they are and there 
we can photograph them. 
And there is one question that I should like to ask : whether in this 
purification which Mr. Webster has been so anxious to do for our 
towns, any progress has been made in purifying the atmosphere by 
electricity. There is a very pretty experiment that I have seen in 
which a loug tube was filled with smoke, but was made instantly quite 
clear by taking a spark across it, and I should like to know whether it 
would be possible to clear the atmosphere from these horrible fogs 
that we have been experiencing of late. Perhaps some other gentle¬ 
man would like to ask Mr. Webster some questions. If no gentleman 
has any question to ask, I can only say that I am sure your feeling 
