The ether, which is supposed to pervade all space and matter and to bring to us the light and heat of the sun, has been w fay. wucite study with many physicists, who have tried, as one device for making it give tangible evidence of its existence, to determine whether it is disturbed in the neighbourhood of moving bodies. Such disturbances would take place if the ether be viscous, Prof. Lodge has attacked this problem by splitting a ray of light into two equal por-tious, half of it with and half of it against the motion of a pair of three-foot steel dises making 1500 revolutions per minute, the beams being then brought together again and allowed to interfere. The inter ference bands should shift on rotation being started, if the ether really retards one beam and accelerates the other in cun-sequence of the action of the rotating matter. No effect, however, hus as yet deen observed.
A new type of accumulator, the result many experiments by N. Bandsept, is being introduced in Belgium, where it is to be tried for electric lighting on railways. It differs from nthers, both in structure and in method of manufacture. The electrodes are formed of a compressed powder, which is saturated during the process of eninpression by substances reduced to m gusevus state. The current obtained is anid to be almost constant, and the battery can be
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