II THE INTERSTELLAR ETHER AS A CONNECTING MEDIUM OQ far I have given a general idea of the present condition of the wave theory of light, both from its theoretical and from its experimental sides. The waves of light are not anything mechanical or material, but are some- thing electrical and magnetic—they are, in fact, electrical disturbances periodic in space and time, and travelling with a known and tremen- dous speed through the ether of space. Their very existence depends upon the ether, and their speed of propagation is its best known and most certain quantitative property. A statement of this kind does not even initially express a tithe of our knowledge on the subject; nor does our knowledge exhaust any large part of the region of discoverable fact; but the state- ment above made may be regarded as certain, although the absence of mechanics or ordinary dynamics about it removesit, or seems to remove it, from the category of the historically soundest 3