mber of the impulses being augmented, the potential
energy of each would diminish, so that finally only atomic vibrations
could be set up, and the motion of translation through measurable
space would cease. Thus an ordinary gas burner connected to a source
of rapidly alternating potential might have its efficiency augmented
to a certain limit, and this for two reasons--because of the
additional vibration imparted, and because of a slowing down of the
process of carrying off. But the renewal being rendered difficult, and
renewal being necessary to maintain the _burner_, a continued increase
of the frequency of the impulses, assuming they could be transmitted
to and impressed upon the flame, would result in the "extinction" of
the latter, meaning by this term only the cessation of the chemical
process.

I think, however, that in the case of an electrode immersed in a fluid
insulating medium, and surrounded by independent carriers of electric
charges, which can be acted upon inductively, a sufficiently high
frequency of the impulses would probably result in a gravitation of
the gas all around toward the electrode. For this it would be only
necessary to assume that the independent bodies are irregularly
shaped; they would then turn toward the electrode their side of the
greatest electric density, and this would be a position in which the
fluid resistance to approach would be smaller than that offered to the
receding.

The general opinion, I do not doubt, is that it is out of the question
to reach any such frequencies as might--assuming some of the views
before expressed to be true--produce any of the results which I have
pointed out as mere possibilities. This may be so, but in the course
of these investigations, from the observation of many phenomena I have
gained the conviction that these frequencies would be much lower than
one is apt to estimate at first. In a flame we set up light vibrations
by causing molecules, or atoms, to collide. But what is the ratio of
the frequency of the collisions and that of the vibrations set up?
Certainly it must be incomparably smaller than that of the knocks of
the bell and the sound vibrations, or that of the discharges and the
oscillations of the condenser. We may cause the molecules of the gas
to collide by the use of alternate electric impulses of high
frequency, and so we may imitate the process in a flame; and from
experiments with frequencies which we are now able to obtain, I t