conductor which is capable of transmitting electric impulses of any
frequency which we may be able to produce. Could the frequency be
brought high enough, then a queer system of electric distribution,
which would be likely to interest gas companies, might be realized:
metal pipes filled with gas--the metal being the insulator, the gas
the conductor--supplying phosphorescent bulbs, or perhaps devices as
yet uninvented. It is certainly possible to take a hollow core of
copper, rarefy the gas in the same, and by passing impulses of
sufficiently high frequency through a circuit around it, bring the gas
inside to a high degree of incandescence; but as to the nature of the
forces there would be considerable uncertainty, for it would be
doubtful whether with such impulses the copper core would act as a
static screen. Such paradoxes and apparent impossibilities we
encounter at every step in this line of work, and therein lies, to a
great extent, the claim of the study.

I have here a short and wide tube which is exhausted to a high degree
and covered with a substantial coating of bronze, the coating allowing
barely the light to shine through. A metallic clasp, with a hook for
suspending the tube, is fastened around the middle portion of the
latter, the clasp being in contact with the bronze coating. I now want
to light the gas inside by suspending the tube on a wire connected to
the coil. Any one who would try the experiment for the first time, not
having any previous experience, would probably take care to be quite
alone when making the trial, for fear that he might become the joke of
his assistants. Still, the bulb lights in spite of the metal coating,
and the light can be distinctly perceived through the latter. A long
tube covered with aluminium bronze lights when held in one hand--the
other touching the terminal of the coil--quite powerfully. It might be
objected that the coatings are not sufficiently conducting; still,