THE NEW MARVEL IN PHOTOGRAPHY.

A VISIT TO PROFESSOR RÖNTGEN AT HIS LABORATORY IN WÜRZBURG.--HIS OWN
ACCOUNT OF HIS GREAT DISCOVERY.--INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS WITH THE
CATHODE RAYS.--PRACTICAL USES OF THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY.

BY H.J.W. DAM.


In all the history of scientific discovery there has never been,
perhaps, so general, rapid, and dramatic an effect wrought on the
scientific centres of Europe as has followed, in the past four weeks,
upon an announcement made to the Würzburg Physico-Medical Society, at
their December meeting, by Professor William Konrad Röntgen, professor
of physics at the Royal University of Würzburg. The first news which
reached London was by telegraph from Vienna to the effect that a
Professor Röntgen, until then the possessor of only a local fame
in the town mentioned, had discovered a new kind of light, which
penetrated and photographed through everything. This news was received
with a mild interest, some amusement, and much incredulity; and a week
passed. Then, by mail and telegraph, came daily clear indications
of the stir which the discovery was making in all the great line of
universities between Vienna and Berlin. Then Röntgen's own report
arrived, so cool, so business-like, and so truly scientific in
character, that it left no doubt either of the truth or of the great
importance of the preceding reports. To-day, four weeks after the
announcement, Röntgen's name is apparently in every scientific
publication issued this week in Europe; and accounts of his
experiments, of the experiments of others following his method, and
of theories as to the strange new force which he has been the first