Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 78.djvu/584

574 to capitalize the future, will be added the new feature of utilitarianism of annihilating the earth in order to improve it as a place of habitation.

Returning to the ether, we find ourselves in better position to discuss its probable nature, and the first theory to be examined, while perhaps the least satisfactory, merits respectful consideration as coming from such an authority as the late Professor Mendeleef, who gave its full development to the periodic system of Newlands, with its strong argument for a common origin of all the chemical elements. Mendeleef's theory is known as the chemical theory of the ether. He suggests that space is filled with chemically inert gases such as argon, krypton, neon and xenon; thus, no chemical reactions would be possible in space, although it is filled with what is actually matter. This is a return to the Cartesian theory of matter filling all space, and implies an atomic structure of the ether. From a purely structural point of view, Mendeleef's theory is not incompatible with the theory of an ether entirely made up of corpuscles, but on account of the larger size of atoms it would be more definitely granular, and therefore less continuous. Cauchy has attempted to calculate the probable dimensions of ether particles and claimed one ten-thousandth of a wave-length as a result. This is not an encouraging figure for the chemical theory, as it is very much smaller than any of the atoms known to us, and it is worth while on that account to examine some of the physical conditions of the medium in space.

This medium is, according to the figures of reliable investigators, under considerable pressure, and Professor Poynting tells us that interstellar space is at a temperature of about 10° abs., or several degrees warmer than the lowest which Sir James Dewar has been able to obtain by artificial means. This would be, of course, an average temperature, because variations must exist in different parts of space. The high pressure combined with low temperature is not in itself suggestive of the presence of known gases.

There is no indication that a fall of temperature lessens chemical activity—in certain cases it has been found to increase it—nor that it in any way accelerates the disintegration of atoms, and there is no reason, therefore, to believe that gaseous activity would be reduced in space by the absolute, or almost absolute, withdrawal of heat. This statement may appear to contradict a previous statement that heat was the result of molecular agitation, but it does not, for gaseous activity, which causes expansion, is an intrinsic activity entirely independent of, though influenced in degree by, the superadded activity imparted to masses or aggregates of gaseous atoms or molecules by heat waves passing through them. Furthermore, no extrapolation of results