The record-union., 1896-03-07

CHARLES M. GROW.
San Bernardino.
We cannot give the address at pres
ent. Would advise you to address The
Electrical World" or Popular Science
Monthly" New York.
Eds. Record Union: Will you please
decide a controversy between some
friends. Please state the difference in
population between the two cities New
York and Chicago. T. HAYFOR,
Sacramento
New York had by census of 1890,
1,515,301; Chicago, 1,099,S50
Eds. Record Union: Please state
the population Of New York City, also
Brooklyn, from latest census.
X. Sacramento.
New York had by census of 1890,
1,515,301; Brooklyn, S06,343
Eds. ''Record-Union": Be kind,
through the correspondents column, to
answer me a question. Can a man be
brought back and prosecuted for beat
ing a board bill to the amount Of S13 90?
A man owing me that amount prom
ised to pay me Monday. Last night
left for San Francisco; bill unpaid.
Is there no law to reach his case? He
ought to be hung. MRS. B., Folsom.
Hanging would be a severe penalty
for such an offense. The law is more
merciful than our correspondent. If
the party by false pretense secured the
credit the law affords you remedy.
If it was a simple case of credit given
your remedy is in a simple civil action,
and if the party is insolvent you will
lose your money. There is a law pro
tecting landlords and under which
beat" can be brought back" and pun
ished, but you keep a restaurant and
you must consult an attorney as to its
application TO your case.
Eds Record Union: SO much is
published about the Roentgen or X-ray,
and photographing through substances
such as the flesh and leather and metal,
that soma of US are mixed as to just
what it is; whether it is really pho-
tography, whether there is really a ray
of light or something else that produces
the effect Can you, from all at your
command, give US a short explanation
o. it. HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS.
Sacramento, March 4th.
The x ray, as Roentgen calls it, is
similar 10 an electric wave. 1t is error
to call it a Cathode ray We under
stand that it is not a visible ray, not
really light, as we understand light to
be. 1t is a wave generated by an cleo
trio discharge through rarefied air.
The electric generator is connected
with the negative pole of charged
tube, which is the cathode.
Before Roentgen it was known that
objects Opaque to light could be made
translucent by electric waves. Roent-
sen himself admits that Hertz and
Lenard were ahead of him in the direc-
ton of his experiments; but his discov-
cry is not the same as theirs. Hertz
and Lenard sent their ray only through
thin sheets of opaque things, and its di-
rection could be changed by the magnet
and they could be absorbed and diff
fused. These things are not true of the
Roentgen rays, which do not proceed
from the Ultraviolet point. SO they are
not cathode rays eve are now con-
densing from the Review of Reviews').
Roentgen has photographed or made
prints of bones of the hand through the
flesh. and of skeletons of birds through
feathers and flesh, and of coins in
closed in a leather purse. but not show
tainty as yet, simply their size and area
are indicated by black print, since the
ray does rot make the bone or the metal
translucent except by very long expos
ure.
1t can be seen, therefore, that while
the discovery will be vastly useful, it
has limits at present in application
that confine it to use in locating Opaque
nd fO cir i
lar uses: it is said also that internal
flaws in metal may be disclosed by its
use. The "Open Court" explains that
the x raw is not refracted, bent aside
as is ordinary light, by interposing
media. but it is absorbed in varying de-
grees By different substances-that is,
some opaoue bodies are more suscept-
ible to it than others.
What is really photographed, says
Professor Mccormack. is not the thing,
hut the shadows cast by the objects
the X raw strikes So we should not
saw photographed, but Xed. Professor
Schubert of Hamburg says: THE shad-
oxvs are allowed to repose for con-
siderable length of time upon the Or
dinarv dry plates Of the photographer,
and are then developed and fixed in the
usna1 manner. The wooden cover of the
casette. which protects the dry plate
from, +he influence of the light, need not
he removed in the new photography or
xirraphy. for Roentgen's X rays pass
nnbindered through wood. Further
more no covering can protect the dry
mates from the effects Of these X rays.
To he protected they must be placed
without the range Of influence of the
rays"
This answers the High School pupils
question whether it is really photogra-
nbv AS to Just what the ray IS, prob
abiv McCormack's explanation is best,
namely. that Roentgen's discovery is
that of a new physical agent; that it
i unlike the previously known cathode
rav because it is accessible to physical
manipulation.
waves are of two kinds-transversal
aud longitudinal-as a stone cast into
vater depresses it as the wave rises
and falls. it is propagated along the
surface. and these are Jransversal, but
when an iron bar is struck on one end
tba line of vibration is longitudinal, be-
cause in the line of propagation.
Light waves in ether are transversal,
sunnosedly. But longitudinal waves
are possfble in the hypothetical ether,
b,1t they are not easily generated; they
rao,,ira enormous velocity of propaga-
lion As the cathode ray it is found
is not transversal, does not show those
characteristics, it is concluded that the
X raw is the longitudinal undulation OF
the ether.