The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1897-05-11
The New Photography.
Independent.

science by the discovery in England,
by Lord Rayleigh and Professor
Ramsay, of two new and eXtraordi-
nary elements, argon and helium.
The new year is already made SINH
larly notable by the discovery by a
German physician, DIR. Roentgen,
of strange properties of a new sort
of ether waves analogous to light,
which will pass without obstruction
through many metals, and through
flesh, just as ordinary light passes
through glass or water. The first
announcement was of its use in pho
tographing the bones of the living
body, showing the skeleton, and
thus indicating its great probable
usefulness for medical and surgical
diagnoses. A photograph will very
likely tell a surgeon just what inter
nal parts are diseased, and will save
all exploration with the knife. 1t
would have located the bullet that
killed President Garfield, which the
probe could not find.
OF course the immediate uses of
the discovery were the first to at
tract attention, but these are not
what we are now concerned with.
We are rather interested to learn
what is the meaning of this new
instrument of research, and what
information it has to give as to the
constitution of matter and force.
That was the chief Importance of
the discovery of argon and helium,
and this new discovery will be of
immense Importance in the same
way.
We have very little exact informa-
ton as yet, for the discovery was
announced as soon as made but we
are told that the light is that of
Crooke's tubes. Crooke's tubes are
a refined and improved form of the
Geissler tubes which are very famil-
lar to the older students of electrici-
ty. They are glass tubes out of
which the air, or other gas, has been
exhausted so as to leave Il nearly
perfect vacuum. An electric cur
rent is passed through the tube and
a pale, wayering light is seen to fill
it, as if the electricity passed easily
in a ditfused form through the va
CUM. Specially fine tluorescent
effects I produced if the tubes are
of uranium glass. This current of
electricity, or light, may be DETECTED
by Il magnet. 1t has been even sup
posed that atoms of the metallic
poles are carried through the tube.
A peculiar effect of the current is
seen about the cathode end, and the
light has been called the cathode
rays. This light, or current, it has
been known for several years, would
pass through a very thin plate of
certain metals stretched us a dia,
phragm zero the tube and one
form of the experiment has been tc
make a window of platinum in tn,
tube and see the light flame out
through it into the air.
Now it is said that it is the light
of these CrOokes tubes which is
used in thenew form of photography
Yet this light appears to work diff.
~ferently from the so-called cathode
rays. 1t passes freely through thick
masses as we'll as thin plates of met.
al. The bubbles and flaws in a cast.
ing are shown photog .aphically, o
the structure Of welding of steel SC
perfectly made that the line of
juncture cannot be discovered with
Il microscope. The most extraordi-
nary statement made about the light
is that 1t is not refracted by II lens,
a statement difficult to understand
if photographs are taken with it.
We I told that the movement of
the waves of this light which may
be very far ultraviolet, is purely
longitudinal, like those of sound,
and not like those of ordinary light.
But this again opens new and very
curious questions in the nature of
ether and it's waves, and is likely to
give us a new key to the knowledge
of the intimate constitution of both
ordinary matter and the luminife-
rous ether.
One cannot help raising the ques-
ton whether this new force which
will give picture of a living mans
skeleton, which will photograph the
contents of a shut purse or q closed
chest, may net have some sensitive
effect on the human body, and may
not account for certain curious phc-
nomena, hitherto treated with skep-
ticism, but now coming into the
domain of investigation if not of
science. Probably not but we are
now taught again that there may be
about us other powers and mysteries
of nature, the clew to which yet
awaits the fortunate and skilful
student. No one can yet tell us
what are atoms, whether they are
simple or complex, what is the
ether which carries the waves of
light, what is electricity, nor even
what makes oxygen unite with hy-
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