THE ETHER OF SPACE two or three seconds, recorded by an ordinary signalling instrument or siphon recorder. These electromagnetic waves in space have been known on the side of theory ever since 1865, but interest in them was immensely quick- ened by the discovery of a receiver or detector for them, The great though simple discovery by Hertz, in 1888, of an “electric eye,” as Lord Kelvin called it, made experiments on these waves for the first time easy or even possible. From that time onward we possessed a sort of artificial sense organ for their appreci- ation — an electric arrangement which can vir- tually “see” these intermediate rates of vibra- tion. Since then Branly discovered that metallic powder could be used as an extraordinarily sensi- tive detector; and on the basis of this discovery, the “coherer"' was employed by me for distant signalling by means of electric or etheric waves, until now when many other detectors are avail- able in the various systems of wireless teleg- raphy. With these Hertzian waves all manner of optical experiments can be performed, They can be reflected by plain sheets of metal, concen- trated by parabolic reflectors, refracted by prisms, and concentrated by lenses. I have made, for instance, a large lens of pitch, weigh- ing over three hundredweight, for concentrating 16