M. Leray asserts that the law of gravitation is only an approximation to the truth, and that it is modified by the volumes of bodies. The proof of this he expects will be found some day in the motions of comets, which rapidly change their volume.
Elective affinity he supposes to depend upon the different forms of crystals, two crystals which present plane faces towards each other being more easily pushed together by the atoms of ether than two crystals in which a solid angle or an edge of one is presented to a plane face of the other.
The sun, planets, fixed stars, nebulæ, &c., are, of course, perpetually riddled through and through, in all directions, by currents of ether. That is why the heavenly bodies gravitate towards each other, as explained in a preceding paragraph.
With respect to reflection at the boundary of space, it is an idea which grows upon you the more you think of it. Enormous as creation is it is impossible to conceive of its having no limit. What, then, is beyond that limit?—Nothing. Not even space in which matter can exist; no place even for matter. On reaching the boundary which separates an entity (for space is an entity) from a nonentity matter must be reflected, if elastic; or it must roll for ever against the boundary of space, if inelastic. This conclusion seems to me inevitable; there is no escape from it.
In the new edition of M. Leray’s book he modifies the theory which I have endeavoured briefly to explain in the foregoing paragraphs by supposing that, instead of one ether, there are two in a state of mixture, the second being a grosser fluid, and its atoms larger than those of the other. It is these larger atoms of the grosser fluid which, by their transversal vibrations, produce the phenomena of light, heat, &c. These larger atoms do not suffer the same swift motion of translation through space as the smaller atoms of the subtler fluid. They have no greater motion of translation than ponderable atoms have.
It may be asked—What is the difference between ponderable and imponderable matter, and why are the atoms of ether imponderable? To this query a satisfactory answer is given; but I must refer the reader to the book for it. Were I to enter upon any demonstrations an entire number of this Journal would not contain half that could be said.
I have proved in an independent manner, and different from that of Père Leray, that two equal, penetrable spheres of ponderable matter, existing in space at a distance apart which is large in proportion to their diameters, will be impelled towards each other by the impact of ethereal matters, according to a law which is approximately that of the inverse square of the distance. When the spheres are brought to within a much shorter distance of each other the law ceases to be approximately true. The law of gravitation may, therefore, be only approximately true for particles of matter at a great distance apart in proportion to their diameters. The only observations which appear to confirm the law are those which have been made upon the heavenly bodies; and here we have a case of a distance apart many times the diameters of the bodies, even between satellites and their primaries.
But before any one can seriously accept this new hypothesis a vast deal more thought and study must be bestowed upon it than I have yet had time to give it.
I will send the demonstration referred to for insertion in a future number of this Journal if our Editors think fit. The subject is not foreign to photography, but intimately connected with it as a science.
According to the new hypothesis, new definitions must be given of Mass and Density. According to M. Leray, “the mass of an atom is equal to its volume, and the mass of a body is equal to the sum of the volumes of its atoms.”