It was natural that man should try if these searching rays could affect the chemicals upon a photographic plate, and we soon proved that they could. It made no difference to us whether man kept the plate sealed up in its light-proof envelope, or whether he placed the plate within a wooden box. These protecting covers offered no barrier to our rays. We produced shadowgraphs of any objects placed between our tube and the photographic plate.
Two of my early experiences may be of interest to you. The first of these seemed to me a rather tame affair. Our X-ray tube appeared to be arranged for the amusement of fashionable folk. One grand lady placed her hand behind the fluorescent screen, whereupon we produced an image of the bones of her hand and very dark images of all the many rings upon her fingers. Several of the rings had enormous diamonds, but it was after she had gone away that I overheard two gentlemen speaking about the rings. One asked the other if he had observed the beautiful diamonds, whereupon the other roared with laughter. It seems that we proved them to be imitation diamonds, for our rays could not penetrate them, whereas they have no difficulty in passing through real diamonds. We therefore produced black shadows of the imitation diamonds. Little did the grand lady know how we had exposed her sham jewels.
My second experience was a very curious one. I learned that our tube was being carried to some distance. After a while we were placed beside a peculiar-looking object, which the men referred to as the "mummy." One of the men suggested that they should photograph its feet, but before doing so they darkened the room and set us to work upon the fluorescent screen. The owner of the mummy got rather nervous as to what we might disclose, and as the force urging us into action was somewhat erratic at first, we produced only a very indistinct image. We were greatly amused at the nervous excitement of the owner; he seemed to think our verdict was that there were no bones. However, the man with the apparatus soon got things into better condition, and this enabled us to produce X-rays satisfactorily. The result was that they secured some excellent photographs of the hidden bones of the mummy.
Before telling you how we made the world talk, I should like to give you a clear idea of our relationship to the atoms of matter.