the electrostatic phenomena, and to endeavor to produce potentials as
high as possible, and alternating as fast as they could be made to
alternate. I then found that I could excite vacuum tubes at
considerable distance from a conductor connected to a properly
constructed coil, and that I could, by converting the oscillatory
current of a condenser to a higher potential, establish electrostatic
alternating fields which acted through the whole extent of a room,
lighting up a tube no matter where it was held in space. I thought I
recognized that I had made a step in advance, and I have persevered in
this line; but I wish to say that I share with all lovers of science
and progress the one and only desire--to reach a result of utility to
men in any direction to which thought or experiment may lead me. I
think that this departure is the right one, for I cannot see, from the
observation of the phenomena which manifest themselves as the
frequency is increased, what there would remain to act between two
circuits conveying, for instance, impulses of several hundred millions
per second, except electrostatic forces. Even with such trifling
frequencies the energy would be practically all potential, and my
conviction has grown strong that, to whatever kind of motion light may
be due, it is produced by tremendous electrostatic stresses vibrating
with extreme rapidity.

Of all these phenomena observed with currents, or electric impulses,
of high frequency, the most fascinating for an audience are certainly
those which are noted in an electrostatic field acting through
considerable distance, and the best an unskilled lecturer can do is
to begin and finish with the exhibition of these singular effects. I
take a tube in the hand and move it about, and it is lighted wherever
I may hold it; throughout space the invisible forces act. But I may
take another tube and it might not light, the vacuum being very high.