ETHERION.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 120, 17 November 1900, Page 3 (Supplement)

ETHERION.

Scientific discoveries of far-reaching importance succeed each other with such rapidity that the ordinary reader who wishes to keep touch of them is bewildered by their number. The discovery by Mr. Brush, an American physicist, of the gas "Etherion," however, stands out prominently in its significance. The new element is reported to have a density ten thousand times less than that of hydrogen, and to possess a greater power of conducting both heat and electricity than any other known substance. Its special peculiarity, however, lies in its capacity for being absorbed by other bodies, as, for instance, poAvdered glass, in which it remains shut up as hydrogen does in platinum black. To this quality it owes its name, Mr. Brush suspecting that he has at last discovered, as a tangible and ponderable body, the interplanetary ether. To imaginative minds, however, the discovery of the neAv gas, if established, Avill probably suggest the existence of a group of elements more-subtle still. As it is, a satisfactory demonstration of Mr. Brush's discovery will necessitate tho revision of accepted theories regarding the molecular .conditions of matter, the radiation of light, heat, and electricity, and the force of gravitation.