Page:On Radiation.djvu/68

 we have a practical measure of the carbonic acid of the breath, and hence of the combustion going on in the human lungs.

Still this question of period, though of the utmost importance, is not competent to account for the whole of the observed facts. The ether, as far as we know, accepts vibrations of all periods with the same readiness. To it the oscillations of an atom of oxygen are just as acceptable as those of a molecule of olefiant gas; that the vibrating oxygen then stands so far below the olefiant gas in radiant power must be referred not to period, but to some other peculiarity of the respective molecules. The atomic group which constitutes the molecule of olefiant gas, produces many thousand times the disturbance caused by the oxygen, because the group is able to lay a vastly more powerful hold upon the ether than the single atoms can. The cavities and indentations of a molecule composed of spherical atoms may be one cause of this augmented hold. Another, and possibly very potent one may be, that the ether itself, condensed and entangled among the constituent atoms of a compound, virtually increases the magnitude of the group, and hence augments the disturbance. Whatever may be the fate of these attempts to visualize the physics of the process, it will still remain true, that to account for the