Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/478

454 must lead to a scientific determination of the existence and nature of the bacteria-germs. His beautiful experiments on the decomposition of vapors, and the formation of actinic clouds by light, led him to experiment on the floating matter of the air, and with what results is widely known. Confined and undisturbed air, however heavily charged with motes, becomes at length, by their deposition, absolutely clear, so that the path of the electric beam is invisible across it. From this, and associated indications, he acutely inferred that "the power of developing life by the air, and its power of scattering light, would be found to go hand in hand;" so that a beam of light sent across the air into which infusions might be placed and examined by the eye, rendered sensitive by darkness, might be utilized with the best results in determining the existence of bacteria-germs. To bring the idea to



a practical result a number of chambers were constructed with glass fronts. At two opposite sides facing each other a couple of panes of glass were placed to serve as windows, through which the electric beam might pass. A small door was placed behind, and an ingenious device was arranged to enable a germ-tight pipette to have free lateral, as well as vertical, motion. Connection with the outer air was preserved by means of two narrow tubes inserted air-tight into the top of the chamber. The tubes were bent several times up and down, "so as to intercept and retain the particles carried by such feeble currents as changes of temperature might cause to set in between the outer and the inner air."

Into the bottom of the boxes were fitted large air-tight test-tubes, intended to contain the liquid to be exposed to the action of the moteless air.

"On September 10th the first case of this kind was closed. The passage of a concentrated beam across it showed the air within it to be laden with floating matter. On the 13th it was again examined. Before the beam entered, and after it quitted the case, its track was vivid in the air, but within the case it vanished. Three days quite