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Electricity has as great a variety of vibrations as sound. Since some
kinds of electricity do not readily pass through space devoid of air,
though light and heat do, it seems likely that some of the lower
intensities and slower vibrations of electricity are not in ether but
in air. Certainly some of the higher intensities are in ether.
Between two hundred and four hundred millions of millions of vibrations
of ether per second are the different sorts of heat. Between four
hundred and eight hundred vibrations are the different colors of light.
Beyond eight hundred vibrations there is plenty of light, invisible to
our eyes, known as chemical rays and probably the Roentgen rays.
Beyond these are there vibrations for thought-transference? Who
knoweth?
These familiar facts are called up to show the almost infinite
capacities and intensities of the ether. Matter is more forceful, as
it is less dense. Rock is solid, and has little force except obstinate
resistance. Steam is rarer and more forceful. Gases suddenly born of
dynamite touched by fire in the rock under a mountain have the
tremendous pressure of eighty thousand pounds to the square inch.
Ether is so rare that its density, compared with water, is represented
by a decimal fraction with twenty-seven ciphers before it.
When the worlds navigate this sea, do they plow through it as a ship
through the waves, forcing them aside, or as a sieve letting the water
through it? Doubtless the sieve is the better symbol.
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