isting
other atoms into conformity with its own position with its magnetic
energy; and, if such ether rings are like the rings which are made in
air, will not stand still in one place even if no others act upon it,
but will start at once by its own inherent energy to move in a right
line at right angles to its own plane and in the direction of the whirl
inside the ring. Two rings of wood or iron might remain in contact with
each other for an indefinite time, but vortex-rings will not, but will
beat each other away as two spinning tops will do if they touch ever so
gently. If they do not thus separate it is because there are other forms
of energy acting to press them together, but such external pressure will
be lessened by the rings' own reactions.

It is true that in a frictionless medium like the ether one cannot at
present see how such vortex-rings could be produced in it. Certainly not
by any such mechanical methods as are employed to make smoke-rings in
air, for the friction of the air is the condition for producing them.
However they came to be, there is implied the previous existence of the
ether and of energy in some form capable of acting upon it in a manner
radically different from any known in physical science.

There is good spectroscopic evidence that in some way elements of
different kinds are now being formed in nebulae, for the simplest show
the presence of hydrogen alone. As they increase in complexity other
elements are added, until the spectrum exhibits all the elements we know
of. It has thus seemed likely either that most of what are called
elements are composed of molecular groupings of some fundamental
element, which by proper physical methods might be decomposed, as one
can now decompose a molecule of ammonia or sulphuric acid, or that the
elements are now being created by some extra-physical process in those
far-off regions. In either case an atom is the embodiment of energy in
such a form as to be permanent under ordinary physical circumstances,
but of which, if in any manner it should be destroyed, only the form
would be lost. The ether would remain, and the energy which was embodied
would be distributed in other ways.

THE ETHER IS ENDOWED WITH ENERGY.

The distinction between energy in matter and energy in the ether will be
apparent, on considering that both the ether and energy in some form
must be conceived as existing independent of matter; though every atom
were annihilated, the eth