[Illustration: TYPES OF PROTO-ELEMENTAL MATTER.]

These are taken from the products of the first disintegration of the
chemical atom, by forcibly removing it from its hole. The groups fly apart,
assuming a great variety of forms often more or less geometrical; the lines
between the constituents of the groups, where indicated, no longer
represent lines of force, but are intended to represent the impression of
form, _i.e._, of the relative position and motion of the constituents, made
on the mind of the observer. They are elusive, for there are no lines, but
the appearance of lines is caused by the rapid motion of the costituents up
and down, or along them backwards and forwards. The dots represent atoms,
or groups of atoms, within the proto-elements. 1 is found in C; 2 and 3 in
He; 4 in Fl; 5 in Li; 6 in N; 7 in Ru; 8 in Na; 9 and 10 in Co; 11 in Fe;
12 in Se. We shall return to these when analysing the elements, and shall
meet many other proto-elemental groupings.

The first thing which is noticed by the observer, when he turns his
attention to the chemical atoms, is that they show certain definite forms,
and that within these forms, modified in various ways, sub-groupings are
observable which recur in connexion with the same modified form. The main
types are not very numerous, and we found that, when we arranged the atoms
we had observed, according to their external forms, they fell into natural
classes; when these, in turn, were compared with Sir William Crookes'
classification, they proved to be singularly alike. Here is his arrangement
of the elements, as it appeared in the _Proceedings of the Royal Society_,
in a paper read on June 9th, 1898.

[Illustration]