Dr. W. Crookes
has made many beautiful experiments on the behaviour of the molecules of
attenuated matter in _vacua_. The small quantity of vapour introduced
contains only a relatively small number of molecules, which thus freed
from all sensible restraint within the limits of the glass vessel used,
are free to move as they will; they are observed to rush about, to
strike against the sides of the vessel, and under proper conditions to
shine and become _radiant_, and to exhibit extraordinary phenomena when
subjected to currents of electricity. So peculiar is the molecular
action thus set up, that scientific men have been tempted to speak of a
fourth condition of matter (besides the three ordinary ones, solid,
liquid, and gaseous), which they call the ultra-gaseous or radiant state
of matter.
This marvel of molecular structure seems already to have removed us
sufficiently far from the idea of a simple inert mass, which might be
primordial and self-caused. But we have not yet done. Even imagining the
extreme subdivision[1] of the particles in one of Dr. Crookes' vacuum
globes, the particles are still water. But we know that water is a
compound substance. The molecule has nine parts, of which eight are
hydrogen and one oxygen--because that is the experimentally known
proportion in which oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water.
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