Radiant Matter Research Articles

3. Remarks on Mr Crookes's Recent Experiments

The author explained that he was glad to be able to bring before the Society some apparatus illustrative of Dr Crookes's splendid researches on what he calls radiant matter. This he was able to do by the skill of Mr Gimingham, who had prepared some splendid vacuum tubes for him lately. He valued those researches very highly, because they brought most conclusive evidence to bear upon the truth of the kinetic theory of gases; because they gave us a clear insight into the action of the electric current and discharge; because they promise to help us in forming a notion of what electricity really is; and because we may also hope from these researches to get some knowledge of the nature of molecules.

U.S. National Academy

THE National Academy of Sciences held its semi-annual meeting at Columbia College, New York, October 28th-30th. Prof. W. B. Rogers presided. The meeting was welcomed by Prof. F. A. P. Barnard (President of Columbia College), as being the first use that has been made of the new building recently constructed and not yet quite finished, on the western front of the college grounds; thus appropriately inaugurating it in the interests of science. Prof. Rogers opened the meeting with a few brief but eloquent remarks, descanting on the far-reaching character of the researches which are now most prominently before the scientific world. As instances he cited the proofs brought by Prof. Whitney of the discovery of human remains in the pliocene; the evidence adduced by Mr. Lockyer, showing that in the sun many of the elements may prove to be compounds; the marvellous expositions of “radiant matter” in Mr. Crookes's experiments; and the striking discoveries in the uses of electricity and the telephone. Prof. Rogers is not ready to accept all the new theories which accompany these novel conceptions, but he feels assured that we are on the road toward new truths. The present age, like that which preceded the Newtonian era, has brought together a vast and somewhat chaotic mass of observations, out of which great principles shall be determined. In this work it is to be expected that some of the members of the Academy will bear an active part.

On radiant matter; a lecture delivered to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Sheffield, Friday, August 22, 1879

On radiant matter; a lecture delivered to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Sheffield, Friday, August 22, 1879

II. The Bakerian Lecture. On the composition and analysis of the inflammable gaseous compounds resulting from the destructive distillation of coal and oil, with some remarks on their relative heating and illuminating powers

The experiments detailed in the following pages, were originally undertaken with a view of ascertaining the relative fitness of the gases obtained by the decomposition of coal and oil for the purposes of illumination, and of elucidating some apparent anomalies in their economical applications. Merely as such, however, I should not have deemed them of sufficient novelty or importance to form the subject of the Bakerian Lecture; but during the progress of the inquiry, some new views relative to the constitution of these gaseous mixtures, suggested themselves, and some properties of terrestrial radiant matter became apparent, which I trust will be thought worth the attention of this Society.