24 Joty—On the Conservation of Mass. 
a 
closely examined. The connexion between mass and weight has not hitherto 
been closely traced through chemical changes on the one hand ; and on the other 
there is nothing in our experience to negative the existence of non-gravitational 
mass in the universe. The organising property of gravitation being wanting in 
such stuff, it must necessarily become distributed in space, and so may acquire a 
rarity rendering it without influence on our observations of whatever kind. If, 
however, the connexion between mass and weight is inherent in the nature of 
matter, then we have to consider certain consequences which may be expected to 
attend a weight-change, and which may be capable of detection experimentally, 
besides loss of gravitational attraction. 
These consequences are such as would attend the disappearance of mass from 
matter progressing through space with the velocity which, as part of the Earth, 
it possesses. The reverse problem is, perhaps, more simply considered. What 
effect must attend increased inertia or the creation of mass under such conditions ? 
There are many difficulties in the way of assuming the required energy supplied 
from the ether. Energy is certainly required to confer upon the new mass the 
prevailing velocity. The immediate conclusion would be that the interacting 
substances (within which we assume the change to occur) would share their 
directed kinetic energy with the new mass. On the other hand, if mass dis- 
appears, the energy associated with its inertia is apparently available. As this 
is directed energy, there is difficulty m assuming it to be dissipated entirely in 
undirected forms, leaving no resultant acceleration, in the direction of motion of 
the remaining mass. 
In short, if the weight-force disappears, and a fundamental interdependence of 
weight and mass obtains, a change in the inertia of the body must attend the loss 
of weight. The change would be one of diminution, it is to be presumed, if the 
weight-change is one of diminution. We may then ask: does a mass-change 
attend such physical and chemical reactions as formed the subject of Heydweiller’s 
experiments? We have apparently no way of detecting such mass-change, unless 
it be attended by gross mechanical effects upon the reacting substances traceable 
to the kinetic energy and momentum associated with the disappearing inertia. I 
am well aware of the obscurity attending the effects to be investigated, and how 
many possible hypotheses, unhampered as we now are by facts, may be framed 
to evade the necessity of assuming any such gross mechanical motions. Even 
so, exploratory experiments are justified, and are still justified even were 
the commonplace explanation of all hitherto recorded weight-loss experiments 
forthcoming. Indeed, the interdependence of mass and gravitation under con- 
ditions of molecular rearrangements has been so scantily explored that the 
possibility of inertia effects arising unattended by gravitation effects must not 
be lost sight of. If inertia is a phenomenon wholly or in part referable to 
