Good Books

Sometimes a whole series of
questions will appear forgotten, and will live only with a languishing
existence; and then some accidental circumstance suddenly brings them
new life, and they become the object of manifold labours, engross
public attention, and invade nearly the whole domain of science.
We have in our own day witnessed such a spectacle. The discovery of
the X rays--a discovery which physicists no doubt consider as the
logical outcome of researches long pursued by a few scholars working
in silence and obscurity on an otherwise much neglected subject--
seemed to the public eye to have inaugurated a new era in the history
of physics. If, as is the case, however, the extraordinary scientific
movement provoked by Roentgen's sensational experiments has a very
remote origin, it has, at least, been singularly quickened by the
favourable conditions created by the interest aroused in its
astonishing applications to radiography.
A lucky chance has thus hastened an evolution already taking place,
and theories previously outlined have received a singular development.


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