Dr, Kobthérster began his observations some 15 years ago in the gondola of a balloon more than five miles above sea-level, Since the war he has worked by a different method. His instrument was a thick-walled metal cylinder, empty of air, and containing an electrometer 50 sensitive that it could measure to one-billionth of an ampere. This instrument he imbedded in clefts of Alpine glaciers where it was protected from rays emitted by the earth. He took readings many times day and night throughout many months. Unlike Dr. Millikan, he found that the intensity of the Jitra X-Rays" was not constant, but variable.
He observed that they reached their maximum intensity in the mornings and evenings, when the y Way and other parts of the minimum intensity when the Milky Way attained the nadir. Indeed, he was actually able to follow ig of the Milky Way in the intensity of the rays as recorded by his electrometer.
These measurements, of unimaginable delicacy, give yet another clue to the mystery. The "Ultra X-Rays" could only emanate from radioactive substances of enormous atomic weight, such as may exist in the earth's interior, from where their emanations ca) not penetrate to the crust. They must also exist ina highly ratified gaseous form on the surfaces of the younger stars or in nebule whose matter has not yet had time to settle in, accordance with the law of gravitation, Thus the coin-idence of the growing intensity of these rays as observed by Dr. Kohlhorster and the rise of those parts of the heavens where young stars and nebule are most numerous would seem to be explained.
It therefore seems probable that the "Ultra X-Rays" are evidence of the birth of new worlds, and it may be that they emanate from highly radioactive clements which are evolving out of primary matter. The possibility that they occur when an electron is captured by a nucleus was indicated by Dr. Milli-kan, and this has led the well-known German physicist Nernst to advance the hypothesis that these rays are signals of the birth of matter itself.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.