Of what form the atoms of an element may be is not very definitely known. The earlier philosophers assumed them to be hard round particles, but later thinkers have concluded that atoms of such a character are highly improbable, for they could not exhibit in this case the properties which the elements do exhibit. They have therefore dismissed such a conception from consideration. In place of this hypothesis has been substituted a very different idea, namely, that an atom is a vortex-ring[1] of ether floating in the ether, as a smoke-ring
puffed out by a locomotive in still air may float in the air and show various phenomena.
A vortex-ring produced in the air behaves in the most surprising manner.
Fig. 4.—Method of making vortex-rings and their behaviour.
1. It retains its ring form and the same material rotating as it starts with.
2. It can travel through the air easily twenty or thirty feet in a second without disruption.
3. Its line of motion when free is always at right angles to the plane of the ring.