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THE PRA I RIE LEGUMES OF WESTERN MINNESOTA.
By Lycurgus R. !\foyer, Montevideo, Minn.
It may seem pres umptuous In on .l whose k nowledge of field botany
is only that of a n a mateur to com e before this Academy with a paper
on so threadbare a topic.
T~e genernl subject of t he Minnesota fio ra
b as alreauy ))e(!n ably discussed b:,r Dr. Upham in h ls "Catalogue of
the Flora of Minnesota," publish ed as Part VI. of the annual r eport
(I( progress of t be Geological and Natu ra l H is tory Suney of Minnesota, for the year 1883.
This scholarly work, while adm ittedly in·
complete, was contributed to by botanis ts from all parts of the state.
r.nd r epres ented at t he same time t he field observations of Dr. Upha m
himself whlle e ngaged in the actual field work or t he geological survey.
Eight years later , In 1892, there appea red the much more
elaborate and pretentious work ot Prof. Conway MacMllla n, entitled
''The Metaspennae of the Minnesota Valley.''
Of this work It may
be said that i t was bused on Insufficient fi eld wor k, and s o a bounds in
(;Onclus lous not Ylerranted b:r t.he facts.
Valuable papers on the
F lora of Minnesota appeared from time to tlm~ to the "Minnesota
Botanical Studies," pnrUculnriy the pa pers by Sheldon, H elle r and
·wheele r. The only s pec·lal r eport on th e flo ra of western Minnesota ,
is a pape r by William A. Wheeler, entitled "A Cont r ibution t o t he
Knowledge of the F lor a of the R ed R iver Va lley ln Minnesota," ( Vol. 2
Mlnn Bot. Stud les 569 ), In which thc t·e a re en umernted twelve prair ie
plants a nd sbr:.~bs belonging to t he Legumtoosae. The second volume
ot B ritton & Brown's " lllus traled Flora of the Northern United
States and Canada" appe:~. red in 1897, and covered western Minnesota
tn a m or e satisfactory way than any other pu blication. 1t seems likely, tn view or the VIenna agreement, •that Its syst em ot nomencla ture
will soon seem antiquated. Robinson & Fernald':; "Gray's Ne w Manual
of Botany'' :s a very helpful book, but Its plant descriptions are t oo
brief to be entirely satis fac tory, and It already appears that it omlt.A
aome Minnesota pla nt s..
Coulte r A Nelson's " Ne w Mu.nual of R ock y
Mountain Botany" is a disappointmen t in that tt is quite locally con·
:fined to a small pa rt of the Roc ky Mou!ltaln region with W yoming
as a center, and does not pu rport to cover t he plains and prairies
at all.
It has been the hope of western botanists when they found
that t he "~ ew Gray's Manual" was limited to th e regions east of the
western boundary or l\ti n nesota, that th e New R ocky Mounta in Botany
would covet· t he adjacent re{,'i.ons to the wesL
The book was t he refore a disappointment. but It leaves the field open for some en thu·
s lastlc young ma n to write a plains ftora, or perhaps a Flora of the
Mississippi Valley .
It may be said that the plains flowers a re not
ve ry att rac~ive, bu t it w lll be found that they arc well adapted t o
their env!ronment. a:.d t herefore wo r thy of car eful stud y.
It is pe rhaps gener a lly known t hat west ern Minnesota Is for t he
most part a b lgh rolling prairie, f rom 1,000 to 1.800 feet above t h e
level or the s ea . The la rgest area of le vel land In this r egion Is t he
Dtg1t1z a by Coogle
•
374
•
Prairie Legumes
Red River valley, the ancient bed of the glacial Lake Agassiz. The
observations noted In this paper are more pertinent to the hfgh rolUng
prairie regions lying south of the Red River valley proper.
These
prairies are practically all of a drift formation.
The regions to the
north of them, or perhaps western Minnesota Itself, seems at one time
to have been underlain by extensive formations of limestone which
became food .for the glacier, and was ground up and incorporated with
the other materials in such a way as to produce a soil of surpassing
fertUity.
In respect to the amount of decomposing limestone found
Jn the soli, western Minnesota differs markedly from eastern A-Hnneasota, or from Wisconsin, and t he ditlerence is all in Its favor.
An
outcrop of granitic rocks crosses the s tate from Its northeast corner
to Its southwest corner, but the material from which the extra·
ordina rily fertlle son of western Minnesota was formed was very
largely ~edlmentary rocks abounding in carbonate of llme.
Very
fe-w expos ures of t his rock are now t.o be found remaining in place.
There Is found on the northeasterly side of Big Stone lake about
ha.lf a mile from Its bend an outcrop of shale bea rlnr; many conere..
tlons, apparently gyps um crystals, but the exact nature of these so
far as the writer k nows bas not been determtnoo.
Prof. Todd ot
the United States Geological :Jurver Is of the opinion that th1s outcrop
is Carlu;lc shale of the Benton group.
Should tbls opinion prove
to be correct one might hazard a guess that the Immense numbt!r of
'
large all!! powerful s prings found along lhe southwesterl:r side of
Big Stono lake a.re due to t be running out. In this locality of the
water· henrlng Da kota sand:-Jtonc.
Rich as this soil Is mlnerally, It i s prol;able that t>art of Us fert Uit y il-1 oue to the action of nitr ifying bacteria wlllch found con·
genial hol-lts on the roots of leguminous plants formerly so abundant
on the prairie.
T ill!: is merely su;n~ea ted without any purpose of
going into th e extensive literature of this branch of the s ubje-ct Cer·
tain It ls that 1 hose par ts of t.he prairies lying highest and drie.st
and apparently posiH:'sslng the least fertile soH have produced the best
crops for many years, some havin g s tood continuous wheat cropping
for for ty years.
Lands lying on a somewhat lower level and appar·
en tly posRessing much more sail humus, ha ve not been nearly so
productive; and lt is a fnr t that the original prairie sod in such
locntlons did not contain nearly so many leguminous plants.
It has
been n oticed. t oo, that those portions or the orlgh:ral prairie that have
beer. fenced and long pas tured and afterwards broken up nnd planted
to ordina ry farm crops have not been n early so productive as the
p rairies that were broken without being pastured.
It Is reasonable
to believe t hat there mus t be some connection between t his lack ot
fertility an d the fact that the leguminous plants were so quickly
destroyed b y cattle.
Like the lmtralo the legu minous flora of western Minnesota has
now practically passed away, and the traveler on the prairies sees
only farm crops, or waste pieces ot l and bear in g weeds of various
kinds, m a n ~- of them bing immigrants from E urope. It seems proper
to p ut on record some acrount of these p lants before tho memory or
th em entirely dies out. They practically exist now only ln h erbaria,
Dtgtttz a by Coogle
Prairie Legumes
375
or as Isolated 1nd1vlduals in waste places or along railway rights of
way; and even in such places they are being rapidly driven out by
more persistent veg etation.
Kentucky blue grass is driving ou t the
original prairie grasses as well as the leguminous plants.
As n early a.-; th e writer can remember the most common ot the
prairie legumes was Psoralea argophv lla Pursh, and it was the silvery
sllky-wblte pubescence ot this plant that cont ributed so mucb toward
giving the pra iries their preva lllng gray tint.
It is a plant of wide
distribution all over the northwes tern plnins.
On high rolling prairies, and on blu1l's and ridges, one was sure
to find Psoro lea escu lenta Pursh, a h a iry grayish looking plant with
t he aspect of a lupin e.
Deep Jn the tough pra irie sod was buried
ft.c; oval or oblong Carl nace<:~us root.
Encnsed in its tough leathery
exterior tuese roots supplied a. white starch y and mealy Interior ot
agreeable ftavor . T h is plant, the tlpslnl or teep-se-nee of the Indians,
th e Pomme de Terr e of the Frencll voyageur, was the sourc.e of a larJJe
part of the food supply of the na ti·res. It is sa id t he lndta.ns dried lt
and made It in to flour which was used tor thickening soups and for
other purposes. The young m en who followed the early breaking plows
on the western Minnesota prairies can tes tify t h at the roots were very
good eaten raw. The Pomme de Terre river received Its name from
the abundance or th is r lant on the sandy prairies along Its banks near
where it was crossed by t he old J oe Brown trail.
'\\1'b on Prof. Holzinger was a home missionar y In Cottonwood
county he collected Psoralea t c'n uiftor a P urs h, in that county-, bu t it
was a rare pla n t.
It w as afterward collected between Morton and
Grani te Falls by P rof. MacMlllan.
The common ground·plum of the Minnesota prairies was k nown
as Astraga l us ca ryom rp lls Ker. In th e old manuals, a nd bea rs the same
nam e in Robinson & Fernald 's New Ma nual.
Dr. R ydberg separat ed
it from Astragalus and p roposed it tile ne w ge nus Geop rumnon. Prof.
Nelson in t he New Ma nual of Rocky .Mou ntain Botany leaves the plant
in Astragnlus as llld Dr. Britton, bu t favors th e division of the old
species so that our pla n t beeomes A.st r a f}a lul> cmssicarptu !':utt. It
was very t ommon in the ea rlr d_ays, and tradit ion t ells us that i ts
fleshy pods were frequently ~ooked by travelers as a substit ute for
green peas.
One wr iter h as testified that its flavo r Is m irlw ny be·
tweeen that of green peas an d asparagus. };"or ma ny years hack the
plant has been so infested w ith "pea bugs" th at no on e would car e, to
eat the d ish.
The w ldelr distributed th l mga l rts Caroliu iamls L, or A. Cana·
densis L. e!.. tends t hroughou t western 1\11nnesota but It was nowhere
It was found on prairies , In ...-alleys and along river
very commo n.
banks.
Th e s pecific name "canadensis" Is used in th e n ew Gray's
Manual and by Dr. Rydberg ill h is !-'lora of Colorado, while t he New
Ma nual ot Rockr Mounta in Bota ny follows Dr. Britton and Or. Small
In preferring the nn mc ··ca rolinlanus." rt seems that bot h n ames a p·
pear tn Linnaeus' "Species Plan tnt rum," "caroHnia nus" being No. 9
and the other No. 10.
At widely separated In tervals over the prairies ot the western
'
376
Prairie L egu mes
part of the state tbere are found knolls often of considerable height
formed of drift materials, which may be considered as either rem·
nants ot moraines or water formed kames.
It is nn interesting fact
of plant dlstrlbuUon that it was on the tops of these kames, and
uowhere else on the prairies, that were to be found in the early days
fino specJmens of Astragal1u nitidu.s Doug., usuall)' called A.stragaltU
aasurgens Pal l. in the early reports.
This plant grew from a deep
tap·root, and its exceedingly numerous stems, branching only at the
base, formed a dense matted clump.
Its compact spikes of purplish
fiowers have something of the aspect of heads of the common red
clover.
The New Gray's Manual regards the pla nt as identical wllh
A.stra,galus arlsurgens Pall, but that species is regarded as growing
only In Asia by Dr. RydbHg, and by lhe New Manual of Rocky Moun·
taln Bota ny.
On flat alkaline prairies and sometimes in river valleys A.stra{l·
alus hllfJOf)lottis L. was very common in the early days.
It is n
slender little plant and does not form dense clumps as do many other
ot the Astragali. The .New Rocky Mountain Botany regards it a.s
Identical with Astragalus goniatus Nutt., but Dr. Rydberg is of a
different opinion nod regards the ~l!}erlan plnnt as dlst1nct from the
American.
On the slope of a railway cut at Ortonville there were collected
in 1898 a few specimens of Astragalull miBsottrienais Nuti.
This
J•lant is new to the flora of the state, and the writer was at first
Inclined to think that It had been Introduced by the railway; but a
vlslt to the same locality a few years later led to finding many speel·
mens Ira the victnlty growing In the original prairie sod, so that it
may be regarded aa truly Indigenous. The plant Is not mentioned In
the New Gray's Manual so tbnt It 1;:; an addtllon to the "Manual region" as well as to the ftora of the state.
Tbf! plant has been
separated from Astragalus by Dr. Rydberg, and is placed by him In
his new genuo Xylophn.cos.
Growing toward the summits ot rather steep banks and bluffs
where the sod is somewhat broken up by the was hing of rains one ts
apt to ftntl A.straoalus lotittoru.s Nutt.
This plant is placed by Dr.
Rydberg In the old genus Phaca.
But It one will compare a. well
developed fruiting t:peclmen of A stragalus lotiftorua with a stmllar
specimen of A.stragal~ ntissouricncis it wlll be very hard to believe
that the two plants belong to two distinct genera. ft seems best to
leave them bot h In Astragalus. Perhaps some of our western Minnesota planta belong to Sheldon's Astragalu~ cliocarpus but a comparison
of the pla.nts with specimens from Colorado leave the matter tn great
doubt.
Astraga l us /fexuosus Doug. was collected at Montevideo tn 1881}
but t he statl()n soon became obliterated . . It ts Qulte common near
the railway yartls at Ortonville. Dr. Rydberg would place thl.; plant
Jn Nuttal's old genus Homalobus.
Sheldon rEport1l the collection of A stragal1l& t enc?hu Pursh In Otter
Tail county, and it seems likely that one of the writer's collections
at OrtonYiile was this spoclcs.
Dr. Britton places th!s species in
Homalobus, as does Dr. Rydbe:-g In his Flora of Colorado.
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Prairie L egumes
377
Along the summits of bltttrs and on prairie knolls Aragallus LambertH (Pursh) Greene Is a fa irly common plant, and always an object
of lntere&;t. It Is one of the Loc::> WC'Cds and is common In blutfy pas·
tures, but no instance of cattle poisoning from eating lt bas come to
the writer's knowledge.
The New Gray's Manual uses the name
Oxytropls for the genus, while Dr. Britton used the name Spiesia In
the Illustrated Flora and the name Aragallus In th e Manual.
Wlld Licorice, GlJ!eyrrhiza lCJ)idota Pursb, was fnlrly common on
rich mois t prairies, growing sometimes where the soil wns partly a tka·
line. rt'he root of the wild species seems not to be so sweet as the
licorice of commerce.
The boys who broke the prairies of western Minnesota forty years
ago have V'ivld recollections of the Devtl's Shoe Strings, the plant wtth
so tough a root that it would double a round the sha rpest plowshare
a nd clog the bl'enk tng plow. This plant Is A morpha canescen11 Pursh,
and it was very common. Its whitened foliage did much to give the
p rai ries their charnctcrls tic gray Unt. A morpha nona N u tt., called
Amorpha micr ophilla PuN:h i n the New Gray's Manual, was less common.
lls folfage was green and glabrous and its spikes of bright
purple fiow ers w ere very showy. Amorpha f r uticosa L . was common
on t!le banks of st reams, t ct it could hardly be called a prairie plan t.
Parosela dalea ( L) Dr it. or Dalea alopec·uroides Will d. as it is
called in the New Gray, was found occas ionally, but 1t was a rare
plant.
Among the prairie clovers Petalostemon canaidus Micbx was com·
moo, and it ls prohable that. Peta lo.<~temon oligophylltt..s (T orr. ) R yd b.
was common too, but the two specle11 have so m uch in common as to
be dltDcult to distinguish. Petalostemot~ purpureus (Ven t.) R yd b, was
common, t oo, while Petalost~ mon v illosrM Xutt., so common in the eas tern part of the state, was either absent or very rare.
Tbe P erennial Pea, J,athynt.S ·t:eiiOsus :\Juhl., was quite common
in es pcdally rich ground , near goph e r mounds. J.athJ!rus pal!Hitri8 L.
was common, too, especially In its variety, Lathym& paltHt t ris ltnearl( oli 11-s Scr.
One Lespideza, L . capitat a. Mich.x., may be recorded as a prairie
plant, bu t I t was nowhere very common.
It was usually found on dry
banks a nd bluffs.
Lott~.a amer-iconus ( Nutt.) Bisch., or as lt is called In •the New
Ora:r's Manual H osack ia americana (~utt. ) Piper, appears never to
have been very common tn this region but ha.s been collected by the
writer nt Big Stone la.ke and Mo;1tcvldeo, and by S heldon at Lake
Hend ricks.
Tbeso western pralr tas can scarcely claim more tban one Desmo·
dlum, D . ccr, aden.s ts (L) DC., a nd this was nowhere very common, and
did not grow tar from blut'fs a nd river valleys.
St rophostvles paucittora (Ben tb.) Hook. has been collected by the
writer as fa r west as Big Stone lake, bu t It cnn hardly be called a.
pra lr le s-pecies.
Vicia am ericana .Mu hl. was common throughout tbe pra trle region,
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D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Prehistoric Aborigines
ln rich moist places, and Vicia linearu ( Nutt.) Greene, a western
species, has been collected as tar eas t as Ortonvllle.
In conclusion 1t may be said that t he prairie Legumes while belonging to but few s pecies were rich fn tndivlduals, and probahly con·
trlbuted much to the fertility of th e prairies.
PREHISTORIC ABORIGINES OF MINNESOTA AND THEIR
MIGRATIONS.
N . H. Winchell.
[Paper written !or the Minnesota Historical Society, and read
F eb. 9, 1907.]
(ABSTRACT. )
Prof. Winchell based h ls dscussion on t b e latest results of the
study of the Glacial period , and the conclusi.onB of the Bureau of
American Ethnology.
He said that by the form er th e farthes t back
that we hope to trace the human occupancy of Minnesota Is not, more
than five or slx thou_sand years, that being th e approximate date at
which t he stat~ became habitable after the ret1rement of the lee of
the last Glacial epoch.
He c~lled attention to the map of late major Powell s howing the
distribution of th e original linguistic stozks of ihe American aborigines, which number between fifty and sLxty ; and to some of the remarkable features of th at distribution.
Be showed that after the
Glacial period the tribes resident alon g t.bc Pacific and the Atlantic
coasts, and on tbe gulf coast began a slow m igration. into the country that had before b~n un inhabitable lying toward the north. The
vanguard of the tribes moving from the southwest wa.S h eld by the
Athapascan a.nd the Algonquian, and from the southeast by the Iroquois and the Sioux. Rentnants of these tribe.s Sttill reslde in theh·
pristine seats, and their dialects, nbich have been carefully studied,
are found to be more r-rcbalc t han the body of the same now k-nown
further no1·tb, showing that these r )mn:.\nt.s were the paren ts or the
more northern dialects.
The va;!ey ot the Ohto and much o! the adj :!~ent country were
occupied ~Y the migrat Jng Sloux and they bec,ame the celebrated
mound bulldcrs of tbe region.
':'he Algonquian, moving from the
southwest, took possession of the timbered regic-n of the northwest,
extending to Hudson 's bay, the whole of Minnesota probably being
This eonstituted the fi rst great migratory moveoccupied by tbcru.
ment.
Then began a great war-the result of which was the disr uption
and expulsiot. of the Ohio mound builders.
Thl'l Is confirmed by
traditions, and by son~e sub-bls torlc facts.
The Al.;onqulans or the
northwet>t moYed southea:::twardly and crossed the .Mississippi in a
h ostile Incursion near the southern boundary of Minnesota, and finally
drove the mound builders who ha-re now been learned to have been
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Prehistoric Aborigitres
379
the Cherokees and some cog:~ate subtrlbes, out of llllnols and Ohio
and into Virginia an~ North Caroltna, where they were met by De
Soto and where they were still building mounds.
Many of them escaped down the Ohio valier, and at Its mouth
they divided, a part of them returning agaln to Mlnn~sota and to Iowa,
and there establlahlng, or renewing, the dynasty of the mound builder,
this later phase being distlnetively called the Minnesota dynasty. It
1a thla migration that brought the present Sioux lnto the ~orthwest,
an event which L9 believed to have been not more than 500 years ago.
After this the Ojibwa (Algonquian) stock made another success·
tul raid on the Dakota tt·Jbes, and gradually pushed them again further south, and recaptured the northern half of the state of Minnesota.- This last mCJvement t.s verified by some historic facts, and by
abundant tradition. It was duri.og this war that tho whltes appeared
on the scene.
The conclusion of the paper summarized the bum~n
mlgratons that have pas.<!ed over Minnesota as follows :
1. Algc :aq~fan occupancy from the southwest. (During tbls
epoch the Ohio mound builders nourished.)
2. ~ucral bosUlo movement against the mound builders by the
Algonquian ( Klllstlno?) tribes from the northv.·est, resulting in the
destructJon of the Ohio d y:1.asty.
3. Fugitive mound bulld~rs return up the Mississippi river and
possess the country under the second. or Minnesota, dynasty, occupying the southern pn.rt or the state, say 500 years ago.
4. The Sioux again driven away, at least from the northern part
ot the state, by the A.lg0:.1quian stock, 150 years ago.
5. Aryan clvillzattc u.
•
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D1g1t1z a by Coogle
•
HENNEPIN AT THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY.
N. H . Winchell, Minneapolis.
(Read June 2, 1908.1
In order to appreciate the personal circumstances which character·
lzed the historic scene of Hennepin's discovery of the falls of St.
Anthony, 1t will be n ecessary to recall briefly t he events that led UP'
to tho d iscovery.
It will be remembered that he was a Franciscan pries t, somewhat '
of an adventurer, who b ad formerly been a soldier, and who bad
volunteered to accompany La Salle on h is perllc.us exploration of the
Mississippi river .
With t wo t raveling companions h e h ad been dis·
patched by La Sa lle In th e spring or 1680 from h ;.s fort on the Illinois
river, to ascend the Mississi ppi ll.Jjd Inaugurate f riendly relation s with
the Indian t r ibes and in cidentally to begin a trade in beaver skins,
for which latter purpose h e was furnis hed wi t~ a supply of goods and
trinkets s uch as are desired by t he natives.. At the same time, geographical k nowlcdf:'e of the unknown r egions which would serve to
extend the domains of the king ot F rance, and the conversion and
baptis m of the savages, which would extend the ln tluence o! the Roman
Catholic church, were s u bsidia ry objects which were to be always
borne in m ind.
This party was s ur prised and captured, and robbed, by a. roving
party of Sioux I ndians at some point not far above the mouth of tho
'Visconsin river.
They were conducted, as captives, across the coun·
try from some point near Dayton's bluff, tn St. Paul, to Mille Lacs in
M1lle Lacs county, the source of the Rum r iver.
During this arduoWJ
t rip t he Indians quarreled among~;t themselves as to th e division of
the spoils which they bad won, a nd which t hey lnbC'riously carried
along wtth them.
Hennepin becnme sick and exh aus ted, but was
treated by the I nd ia ns, on their arrival at th e end of th eir journey,
with a h ot steam bath , for whtcil th ey special!}- constr ucted a sut tnble
hut, and after which repeated t hree times o. week, he regained h is
h€alth and h is us ual strength.
Hen ner ln remained several months nmongst t he Sioux at Mille
L aes, where accord ing to b ls account of ht.s c.a.ptlvlty, hP. was held as
a. <.'nptlve and a s a s lave.
I t wtll be well to enumera le some of the
deprivations which he suffered :
(a) His canoe had been broken to pieces when th<JY left the Mlss1ssippt nt St. P aul.
(b) His goods b ad been ptllaged and divided amongst three of
tho Sioux bands.
(c) H e was adopted by A qulpaguettn as b ls son, and was con·
signed to the care of h ls wives, with instructions to regard him as one
of t h eir children, as a s ubs titute for one t hat had been killed by t he
Miami.
(e) His sacred articles were taken away f rom hlm, and in order
to perform baptl!.:m on a dying child h e wrested a half of a Jlnen altar
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Hennepin Qt the F(l/ls of St. Anthony
elotb from the banda of an Indian who bad stolen It fro.m hlm, and
put It on the body ol the baptlaed cbUd.
(f) His chasuble bad been desecrated by the son of Aqutpaguetlu,.
who had used it to wrap up some ol the bones of his deceased rola·
lives, and s wtng1ng tbe bundle over hls ehouldere bad paraded through
the village.
It had then been ~ reaf'.nted to some or tbelr allies, sit uated about 500 leagues to the west.
(g) Hennepin was required to serve as barber for the heads of
Indian chUdren, and as surgeon for bleeding persons amlcted wit h
asthma, and he also administered a never-fat llng drug ( orvletan) to
others who wero sick.
It appears therefore t hat bts Ute wit h the Sioux at MUle Lacs was
one or deprivation and of hunger; and when tile Indians were preparing to take him on their annual buffalo bunt his fellow country·
men heaped upon him the crowning act or lngrntltude and ins ult. The
three Frenchmen were g iven a canoe tor t heir ;cint use In descending
the Mississippi; but Accault and Du Gay refused to gtv11 htm passnge
In it, and pa ddled ofr without taking btm , one of them shouting out to
htm that he had paddled the F ranciscan far enough alreedy. He was
• afterward taken In however by two Indnns. It Is e\·ident that to this
emergency Rennepln was reduced to the lowes t pittance of earthly
possessions.
In this condition h e was compassionately conveyed by
t he Indians as tar as the mouth of Rum river where the whole pa rty
ha lted for some tlme for the purpose of replenish in g t heir s tock of
canoes.
Events which took place h ere, united wit h what precedes, have an
important bearing on the personal appearance of Henne!)in at the falls
of St. Anthony.
At the Indian camp H ennepin remembered that La
Salle. had promised to send him additional s upplies and messages from
the Illinois, to meet him at the mout h or the Wisconsin river. This
oelay, at the place wbich fs now known as Champlin. opposite the
mouth of Rum river, was galling to h im, and he solJcited permission
f rom the cbtef of the Sioux to descend in advance or m~t t hese dis·
patches at the mout h of the Wisconsin.
Thls was granted and Du
Gay was also permitted to accompany him, Accault preferring to re·
main with the Indians.
These two forlorn and adventurous F rench·
men set out In a small, leaking. birch canoe.
They were given an
earthen pot. and a gun and a knlfe.
T hey had a single robe made
of beaver skins which was to serve them together.
They had no
Th i8 is th e po.rtJI tMt d £scovered tlt e (all~ of
gu ide nor assistants.
St. Al~thOnJI.
It consisted of t wo, ragged and hungry Frenchmen h astening to an appointed plaoo to get supplles and n ews from I.a Salle.
The particulars of thls discovery are g iven br leOy t.y Hennepin to
the following words:
"This cataract Is for ty or fitly feet high, cihided ln t he middle ot
Its fall by a rocky ialand of pyramidal form. • • • As we were
maklng the portage of our canoo at tho falls or St. Anthony or Padua
we perceived five or slx or our Indians who had taken the start, one
of whom had cllmbed an oak opposite the great fall, where h e wu
w~pin g bitterly, with a well-dressed beaver-robe, whitened Inside and
D1g1t1z ;dill
.4
CII:Logle
Hetmepin at fM Falls of St. Anthony
trimmed with poreupine quUls, which this savage was offering as a
sacrifice to the falls, which is in itself admirable and frightful.
r
heard him, while shedding copious tears, say, addressing this great
cataract: 'Thou who art a. spirit, grant that the men of our nation
may pass here quietly without accid~nt, that we may kUl buJralo l.n
abundance, conque r our enemies, and bring slaves here, some of whom
we wlll put to death before thee; the .Messenecqz (Sanks and Foxes)
have killed our kindred, grant that we may avenge them.'"
. The significance of this prayer is understood when we recall the
statements of R ev. S. W. Pond, long a mis sionary amongst the Sioux.
According to Mr. Pond the dwe111ng place of the god of the waters wa!S
beneath the falls of St. Anthony.
He had the form of a monster ox,
and his spirit permeated all streams a nd lakes.
He was called
Oankteht, and as his bones wer occasionally found ln bogs and
swamps by the superstitious natives Mr. Pond says the Indians wor·
shipped the mas todon (or th e mammoth) whose sk eletons are st11l
found in such positions. Oanlttehi was• the evil god, and needed to
be propitiated by gifts and sacrifices.
He was always con tending
with the thunde r-bird who was the good god a nd presided over e verything.
This conflict is brought out vlvhllr by Huggins and by Gor·
den in their l egendary poems " Winona," and "The Feast of the Vlr·
gins."
What a setting for some painter to put upon the e<-tn\•as!
Two wander ing, bnlf·st.a n ·ed Frenchmen por tnging an old t•a.noe
· along the ells t bank of the river.
.
The fulls of St. Ant bony just above them to the r ight.
The teaming rapids just below them.
A supe rstitious suvage offering a beautiful beaver robe to. Oank·
t ehl, displaying it (JD the branches of an overbnuglng oak tree.
The rising su n in the morning s ky.
The scant-forestetd hills and undulating prairies stretching from
both banks into t he limitless dlslance.
That Is the psychological moment thnt awaits ~~ome sktlful nrtlst
to be portrayed on the co_nvas. rfbat Is the COlljuuction in one great
scene of tbe most prophe tic and mome ntous el ~ment s In tbe his·
tory of Mtuuesota.
T here is native, orlglnal Minnesota. In all its untrod magoiftcence,
pregnant with all its potential promise.
T here is the wild man, Its
sole occupant, with his feeble energy and superstitious iai.th.
Conjoined to these In the surue sceue Is the tr ead or the first
European, wltb all that his c tvil izat.ion implles . In t hat footstep is
the embodiment of geograph ic exploration prompted by c-ommerce and
Christianity, the tntel11gence nnd education l.)f He nn ~pln con trasted
with the degradation or the savage.
All the art which bns followed
after tlaat scene, all the manufactures, the science, all the education,
nH the improved me thods of huma n livelth ood are foreshadowed a nd
concentt:r e d in t he discove ry or the .f alls or St. Anthony. No s ingle
individual scene, no event In all our history, t·arrles with it !iO much
of the natural and so much of the possibility of t11e artlftclal in our
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Hennepin at tl&e Falls of St. Anthony
htstory as the portaging of that canoe round the falls of St. Anthony
by Father Hennepin and his companion Du Gay .
•
It Is hame ntable that 1n the Capitol ot the sU\te, on the wall of
the gove rnor's room, 1s a travesty of this scene-a palntlng on which
the youth ot the s tate are exl)ected to look and trom which to draw
tmpresslMs of the historic discove ry of 1680.
When 1 first glanced""
a t tha t painting I turned my face away in a feeling akin to disgus t,
and for three years I did not look upon It again.
I h ave rece ntly
examined It, to order that I may be able t o re nder a truthful description.
.! s a work of art and fiction tt ma y be wort hy ot praise, as a
h istorical picture it is a mis representation and an abl.lrtion .
The PD.ln tlng sh ows seven pe rsons, ot whom five arc sea ted and
two are stt~ nding.
Of the forme r one is black·wbls ke rcd Du Ga y.
He bas a tllnt-lcx:k gun, a butra.lo gunpowder horn, and a game pouch
s uspended from bls s houlde r resting a t his right s ide.
H e is well
clothed and capped.
On eithe r s ide of h i m a rc four India n warriors
sea ted, a nd a pparently in terested in t h e speech whleh ts being made
by H en.nepln.
A red pipes tone calume t Hes· across the gun wulc ot
the canoe. At th e r lght of the picture Is a n I ndia n S(1uaw jus t a.p·
proach_ing, with a bundle of baggage s us pended JJy a bead-st ra p, lying
across her shoulders.
She has Caucas ian fea t ures and a copper·
colored ski n.
1t Is to be Inferred tha t the bundle belongs to H enne·
pin , and th e sQuaw is a s lave in h is service.
The bun dle ts n icely
wrapped and strapped ltl what nppeurs to be a Mac k inac blonket ,
although 1t may be mean t to tndicr.,tc a beaver skin ro be, for it is bard
t o belie \'C that s uch an a nacbronis m as a Mac kina c bla n ket would bY
a ny one be int rod uced into s uch a pa inting. A birch canoe is on t ho
rocks in tbe midst of t he group, t he os te nsible mea ns of t ra \'cl tor the.
wh ole seven.
Standing boldly to th e f ron t, and t'aciug the fa lls, appears H r:nnepin.
The s pot is appa ren tly some distanee below the falls on t he
east bank.
T he point of v iew ena bles one to over look the falls and
s~ a small part of th e r iver above, and hence must be supposecl to
be located on the brink of t he gorge.
At t he same time it ts plain
that the port age round the fa lls bas already been matle a nd tha t the
arr ival of the squaw car ryin g H ennepin's baggage is the las t act in
the "ca rry.''
He nce it hna to be infe rred that the scene is at t he
lower end of t he portage line, a nd at th e place where th ey ca n aga in
push their canoe into the river.
This inherent incons istency cannot
be explained by any one except th e artis t.
The most rema rkable cha racter in this fantas tic group, as is
natural and was to be expected, Is H ennepin himselt
H is cow l is
thrown ba ck upon his chasuble, re\·cnling a s haven face and a tons ured
caput.
H e stretches forward nod upwa rd both a rms, In t he le Ct hold·
lng a c rucith as iC h e we re proclaiming the double dom inion of SL
Anthony of Padua and of the king of li'rance.
A r obe covers him
down to h is a nkles.
His feet a re lightly sandaled, and his s houlders
and back are co,•ered with a chasuble which ta pe rs downward to a
narrow s trip, extending about to his h ips. The sleeves or t he gown
are large and flowing, and the priest's wais t Is gtrted b y a twis ted ( or
braided ) heavy cord, the ends of which bang down the righ t s ide and
D1Q1t1z a
Hennepin at the Falls of St. Anthotsy
show several ornamental enlargements. From the laborioue attltu4e
of the squaw 1t Is evident that t.)le whole party have but just arrived.
and that the appearance of Hennepin ls designed to ·represent htm 111
hts ordinary travelln.g costume, leaving 1t open to Imagination as to
what part of Hennepin's baggage the squaw carried.
The divergencies of this remar'kl\ble picture from historic truth
are so glaring that the merest tyro In state history can but discern
them. To the novice in state history, and to the multitudes who
visit the room who know nothing about our state history it conveys
a wrong tmpressloo. As a work of lmagtnattve art lt Is finely en·
cuted and appropriately colored.
There is, however, a higher element in art than mere mechanical
execution. True art Is true to nature and to facts.
"Art is the child of nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we
trace tbe features of the mother's iace"-Longfellow.
In the absence of a knowledge of facts It would be warrantable to
supply them, hut the result ought to be labeled, not a historic painting
but an Imaginative restoration of history. Poems are thus bullt up.
Novels are "based on history." Milton's "Paradise Lost." most of the
dramas of Sbakesveare, are of this character. But they are not l!tstory and do not claim to be hist ory. The known events of those his·
tortes arc scant or too prosaic.
The poets were justifiable, In con·
structlng their works, In supplying lacking parts.
In the case or the dlscovery of the faHs of Sl Anthouy, what an
orportunity for a truthful pntnttng! th ~ scene, the historic event. the
lively description by Hennepin-the very details are all available.
·-
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
•
;.,.,
•
THE 6TRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE; BEING A PRESENTATION
OF PROFESSOR OSBORNE REYNOLDS' THEORY
OF GRAVITATION.
(With Experiments.)
By J ohn Mackenzie, Minneapolis.
FiriJt Statement
ot
R eynold$' Tlleorv in This Oount711.
The title of my lecture this evening sounds htgh.
When one
talks about the str ucture of the universe It would seem that be bas
a large subject on his bands. I may also state that as tar as I
know what I wJll present to you this evening baa not up to the present time been presen ted to or dealt wtth by any other scientific,
philosophical or llternry society In this country, and with tbe excep·
tton or the gene.ral mention of Reynolds' theory or gravitation by my
friend Professor H en ry Crew of the Northwestern University, in his
recent work on "Genersl Physics" I am not aware that. the theory has
yet been noticed In tho United States.
Wonderful Developments of Modern Science.
Numerous and wonderful have been the discoveries of science
from the ttme of Newton to the present day; and the end Is not yet.
Aa Henry C. Jones, Professor of Physical Chemistry In Johns Hopkins University In his work entitled, "The Electrical r-;'ature or Mat·
ter" remarks : "It seems not too much to predict that as the 19th
century surpassed the preceding 18th in the development of sclentlftc
ktlowledge and tbe discovery of truth, Jus t so the twe ntieth century
wtll exceed them all In the gifts ot pure science to the story of human
knowledge." I hope my lecture this evening wtll show you to some
e~tlnt bow true tbls is, and that l nd ~d, already in this century the
portals have been opened by the master mlnd of Osborne Reynolds
to a new and further advance of dynamical science by the solution of
the problem of a ll problems,- the cause of gtavltatlon.
As T o P ro(etssor Remolds.
Professor Osborne Reynolds ·was born at Belfast, Ireland, on Aug.
23, 1842. He graduated at Queen 's College, Cambridge, In 1867, his
name being fifth in the list of wranglers In the mathematical tripos.
In 18G8 h e be !ame Professor of Engineering ln Owens College,
Manchester, England,-an lnstttutlon which Is regarded as probably
the greatest engineering coUege In the world. Owing to 111 health be
resigned h is professorship a year and a half ago. ProfeS3or Reynolds'
researches and contributions dealtng wlth various mecha nical and
dynamical subj(.'('ts ranlt very high with all engineers, and, as all
students of tbe subject know, his researches have largely created the
modern science of hydrodynamics.• The thlrd volume or Reynold's
• H e has ooen pret~en t od with
mnny honors by various sclentJftc lnstltutlone. and h i s name II! ramUia r throu ghout the world to all who take an.
Interest In the
physl~a.l
sclence.s.
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
386 .
S tructure of the Universe
Scientific Works Js entitled : "The Sub-mechanics of the Universe," and
is published under the auspices of the Royal Society. This is a work
of pure science, ts highly technical, and deals wth the structure of the
universe from a <iyamica.l and mechanical point of view, and explains
the cause ot unlvers::.l bravi taUon. Combining as Reynolds does the
rare gifts of pure science and practical science, we get a tangible
definite theory or rather explanation as to the structure of the universe, which is the result of twenty years of exl)erimentnl and mathematical investigation, a nd which !s something very different from the
fruitl ess speculations on gravitation which h ave been indulged 1n by
many of the speculative philosophers in the past. We have here at
last a simple, scnelblc, dynamical theory of the phy:~ical universe and
gravitation. The problem, however, as you wlll realize later, is solved
by an apparent paradox.
Newton Discov ered the Law But Not the Oauae.
We are aware or the fact that Newton discovered nnd enunciated
th e law of universal gravitation, but h e did not discover the catUe.
Newton proved the law by which all the material bodies in the
universe were governed.
This law, as you lmow, states that all
masses or matter In the universe attract each other with forces proportiona l lo the masses and inversely proportional to the square ot
the distance between them. This law governs tho smallest particle of
matter as well as the mightiest sun in the universe.
But, while
Newton specttlated, on the r.ause or gra\·itation, or the r etUon why
bodies act In this way. he was unabJe to solve the problem. There
have been many attempts sin ce the time of .Newton to solve tb~
problem. Tbe hlst<:lrY of pbyslc.al science is replete with the baffled
effort s of the grt>atest Intellect s to find the solution. One bas onJy
to read Taylor's "Kinetic Theories of Gravitation" to realize the manr
•
fruitless attempts to solve thJs problem ln the last two centuries, and
indeed some philosophers came to the conclusion that the problem
could never be solved. There are indications that Fourier and even
the greJtt Laplace considered gravitation as one or the "primordial
causes" which m ight remain forever impenetrable to us.
The Gifts of Pu.re Science to Practi cal Scien ce.
In t he eyes of a certain class of people tho many long years of
toll and pa Lient investigation of the true scientific investigator count
for nothing unless they Immediately bring forth some brilliant. or
sensational discol'ery, or one which can be immediately turned Into
money.
Some people have no use for sciflnce unless they can se(J
immediate money In it.
We should not forget, however, that the socalled "practical" fellows '\\'Ould \'e ry soon have nothing t<> work on
were lt uot for the researches carried on and the principles diswvercd
by the sLudem s of pure science. We have only to reflect on the prac·
tical value of 1\ewLOn's d iscovery of the law of gravitation.
This
was a discovery ln pttre science, and bas it not g h·en the world Its
eclence of mechanics? 'Vere it n ot tor the mighty Newton and the
great Galileo, who, out of. their pu re love of. sc!ent1flc In vestigation
laid down the laws of motion and pure mechanics, the world could
•
•
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
S truct·ure of the U11iversc
.h ave ba d no engineers.
And coming down to m odern times, were lt
not tor F araday a n d Maxwell who discovered the principles of electric
induc tion and electro magne tic w aves there colud be no Edi son or Ma r·
c.'onf to apply t hem.
Th e l'a$ t Apparently Emptv Space of t he Universe Compare<l to tll e
S1nall Space OCCit.pied by Matter.
Whe n we look Into th e sky on a c lear dar k n igh t through a power·
t ul telescope the stars a nd planet s appear t o be set in a vast vault-like
space showing the perspective of distance to a ce rtain exte nt.
T hey
seem to lose the a ppear ance w hich th ey _p r esent to the unaided eye
or being set simply on a plan e backg r ound. As we look i nt o the vas t
abysses of s pace we reaJtze that notwiths tanding t he g reat number of
stars the actual space they occupy In the universe is as nothing compared to the vast spaces all r ound t hem wbfch appf'a r to be absolutely
void. We mny say that the room taken u p or occupied by what w e
tall "matter" In the unive rse Is excecutngly s mull compar ed with the
spnce which seen1s to be em pty.
Professor Newcomb bas stated that
probably there are about 100 mtll ton suns In the \mh·erse, aver aging
tl \"e times larger than our sun .
T his would gin~ a tot a l amount ot
m atter of &00 mUlloo SilOS equal to our sun, and h e s upposes these
su ns to be equally distributed throug hout a sphere 30,000 ligh t years
in diameter.
Jn othor words, light, w h ich t rnvels, as you know, at n
velo<!lly of 186,000 miles p e 1· second wou ld take 30,000 yenrs to pa.<;s
from o ne side of s uch n u nh •crse or ~,pberc to the o ther side.
Th is
would mean n sphere billons or billions of miles in dia meter ; whereas,
our s un, wblch Is somclhlng like 800,000 miles in diameter, eyen It
enlarged fiOO million times would st ill be but nn tntlniteslmslly smalL
i1De£k ot mutter In s uch a ,·ast universe of other wise empty space.
lVhat is 1'h is A 11parcnlly E mpty StJa ccr
T he ques t ion occurs, Wbat Is tho nature of this npparently e mpty
~Pn<'e ?
I s I t a complete void or v acuum, or docs It con tai n a medium
or some kind?
~ow, on th fs poi nt there h ave been many sp~ ula·
tlon.s.
To all appearances tho .p lac.ets, moons, stara, comets and
m oteors which move th ro ugh t h is space wHh g reat vE!loclties meet wlth
no restsbtnc:c f1·om tblo; m edium , ff tlHrre be a medium.
T he earth
rnon~s th rough It a t a speed of 19 miles J;er sc<'ond l n its journey
round t he sun, and r ecen t expe riments of Pa·ofessor Michelson st~em to
prove con clu.sl\•ely t1~t !! there be a m edium in this space none or it Ia
ent."lngled with the earth or carried nlong w ith the earth in i ts motion through s piU'c.
Another question nrlses. I s the powerful force of gravity whlcli
binds th e d ltfer ent bodies of tlH~ solar system togeth er, and in fact
the whole 01aterlnl unl ·:·ersc, eonveyed tb:-ough ab:::olutely t>mpty space?
Tn other words, cnn momentum be transmitted across an absolute void,
or ts t h ere sur.h 11. thing a.s "action at a d istance?"
We kno w that
th e graYftn t ive pull of the SliD on the earth ts cqunl t o a for('e more
than a mill ion mEllon steel rods, each ceventeen teet in diameter <'Oul d
stand.
Tlte earth is 92.000,000 miles from the sun.
I s this Immense
f orce tran s m itted arross nn absolnto void?
Whtl~> the eye sees noth·
•
Stmc:turl' of• the Universe
ing in space. It would seem to our better judgment that there must
be some sort of mechnnt:m which transmits this glgnnUc force. Other
considerations lead us to this concluclon.
We know that powerful
magnetic s torms origl<latfng In the sun are transmitted instantaneously to the earth and th roughout the whole solar system wlt.h such
intensity occasionally as to put many of the telegraph Instruments
and wires in the country out of commission until they pass.
The D en8it11 of t he Medium .
•
Until rcc:ent years very little of a definite n ature has been known
as to the nature of the mculum of space.
So far as any evidence it
gives of Its existence to our senses is concerned, Jt would appear to
be something V'ery unsubstantial, and fo r this reason lt has been called
the "eth er."
Newton had an idea that it was a. very thin, hlgh.ly
attenuated fluid which pervaded all space, so very thln In fact, that if
you could scatter a plll box full of air throughout the space of the
solar system lts density would then be about the density of the ether
ol space.
With the developmen t of electrical science and the study of electric
and magnP.Uc forces. however, different Ideas began to be en tertained
as to the density of the so-called ether, u ntil to-day we have the
leading physicists postulating the necessity for an ether of very
hJgh density and very much greater than the denalty of any known
substance. In his Yale lectures on ''Electricity and Matter" Sir J . J .
Thomson, ln discussing the n ature of elect rical mass, sa)'15 : "The vtew
I wish to put before you ls that It Is n ot merely a part of the mass
of a body which arises In this way, but that the w hole mass of any
body Is just the mass of ether surrounding th e body which Is carried
along by the Faraday tcbes associated with th e atoms of the body.
Jn fact, that all mass Is mass of the ether, all momentum, momentum
of the ether, and all k lneUc energy kinetic energy or the eth er. This
,·Jew. It should be sa id, requires the density of the ether to be Immensely greater than that of any known substance."
And In h is
presidential address to t he Brttlah Association at Winnipeg lut
August be said : "Since we know the volume of the corpuscle a.s well
as t he mass, we <.an ca lculate the density of the ether attached to the
corpuscle: doing so, we find It amounts to the prodlgtous value or
about 2,000 mlllton times t.bat or lead." He states, h owever, that t his
density would be the density or the ether only in the Immediate v lcln·
lty of the corpuscle. ancl that Jt.~ density In free spa<.',e would not be
so high It the ether Is not compressible. Sir Oliver I..odge, In hls last
~dillon of "Modern Views of Electricity" also says : "The ether ts now
turning out to be by fa r the most substantial body known ,-ln com·
parison with which the hitherto coutorupll\ted material universe Is llkc
a vapor of ex treme tenuttr.-a barely perceptible filmy veil."
These conclus ions of Thomson and Lodge ~ s to the dcnslty of th e
medium or r.pace n re orrlved a t by the ctudy of electromagnetic and
-elec trostatic foree11.
P rofessor Reynolds works out hts conclusions
from mcchnnlcal nnd dynamical cons lderaltons, and arrives at the
·density of the mcd hnn o~ space a3 belng ten thousand times that ot
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Structure of the Utti·oerse
water, or 480 times denser than platinum, which Is the densest matter
on earth.
In view of this great dens ity of the medium of apace, does 1t not
seem rathea- paradoxical that what we call matter, that Is, the planets,
suns, moons, comets and so forth, which aa-e so much less dense than
the medium should move through the medium apparently without
resistance and a t such high velocities?
Our earth, as you know,
You have
moves In Its orbit at a velocity of 19 miles per second.
all seen bubbles moving In water.
Reynolds shows that the earth
and all the other material bodies move through space In a similar
manner. 'fhey are less dense than the medium tn which they exist,
and, as we shall see, their movements are due to differences of pressure
in the surrounding medium.
They are like so many filmy soap
bubbles which a cblld blows from the stem or a pipe. Real mass is
not In the material things which we see, but ln space where the eye
See$ nothing.
The sober conclusion of the most advanced dynamical
science Is that matter Is a negative thing so far as Its mass Is con·
cerned, and that the space occupied by "matter" contains very much
less mass than the space where no "matter" exists.
I s the Medium Oonlintlous
Qr
Granulart
We now <:>ome to another important point.
I have here on the
table a glass full of small shot and another glass full of jelly, The
glass of shot we will take to represent a universe composed of what
we will call a "granular medium," that is, a medium composed of dis·
crete or separate pnrts or grains ; the jelly represents a. universe com·
posed of what we will call a. "continuous mffilum," that ts a m edium
not made up of discrete or separate parts, but continuous in Its structure. TbE'Se two kinds of structures represent the two views which
are held as to the nature of the structure of the medium of space.
We have ascertained that this medium is very dense; now let us en·
deavor to find out the character of tts structure.
On the correct
answer to this question binges the t rue solution of the problem of
gravitation.
!
We have had atomic systems of phUosophy from the earliest ages.
Democrttus and Lucretius are the anclt>nt fath ers of the atoml~ sys·
terns. In his great poem on the origin of things Lucretius speculates
on the atomic system of the universe, and tries to show that the origin
of the .hnlverse was due to a "concourse of atoms.", There have been
many speculations on thts point from that day to this; but It has
remained for modern science, with Its exl)etin'lenta l and mathematical
methods, to arrive at the truth.
Analogy would suggest that the medium of s pace would be gran·
uta.r In Its structure. We are not acquainted with anything that can·
not be divided Into parts.
The atomtc theory in chemist ry, whose
modern founder was Dalton, a.nd which has proved so tert tle, postu·
Jates that the chemical unit ts the atom, and that the atom Is the
unit from which Is built up systems of molecules, organic and lnor·
ganle, In the universe around us: that all things are comblnatlonR and
c.--ompounds of atoms. The ntom, indeed, has been weighed and meas·
ured.
Maxwell and Kelvin did this for us, and we know In fact
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
•
Structure of tire Universe
•
about how many atoms could be laid alongside each other in t he length
of an inch . They tell us th at from ten million to one hundred mll·
lion atoms could be laid alongside each other to m ake up a n Inch in
length. Of course, an ything so s mall as this ts inconeelvable; but we
know that the inconceivability of n thing now-a-days does not mean
that it Is Impossible. Kelvin stated that lf o. drop of water werP. enlarged to the size of the earth, which we know is about 8,000 miles
tn diameter, the atoms or molecules of which 1t l s composed would
appE>..ar about the size of base balls.
In r ecent years, however, somethng very much smaller than the
atom has been discovered by science.
You have all h eard of the electron. An electron is an atom of electricity. Jt is now maintained. by
physicists rhat the ordinary chemical atom whiCh I h ave just spoken
of, ts a compound thing, and is composed of aggregations of thousands of electrons.
An electron has been defined as an "electric
point charge" ln the ether. It seems to be an almost in finitely small
point of electricity, and the Idea is that aggregations or th ese electric
point t'.hnrges or elect rons, when combined into a system form what is
known as the chemical atom. Configurations of s uch a system have
been wo:·ked <:>ut b)· Thomson, Larmor nud others, and It would appear that the sy:;tem of the -;:hemtcal atom which is an aggregation
or electrons Is far DlOre compllcatc,J than tho ::;olar srstem . T he infinitely small is turn!nF out to be .m ore coL:ptex than the infinitely
great.
The univer se within the atom seems to be mo:-e complicated
than the universe cutslde.
The electron ls, ot course, very much
smaller than t he atom, and, like the atom, its size ts !nconceivable.
One may- get an Idea of the size of tlte electron as compared witll
the size or the ' atom if we su~'pose th e electron to be about as large
as the h ea'd dt a pin revol-.•1ng inside the Minneapolis Auditorium,
t he Auditoriury} being taken to represent the size of the a.tom:
These electrons which mRke up t11e atomic syste m move w ith very
high velocities in tbe atomic
system. Th e mass of tb e mo,ring elec•
trou h as been nuasured, ns well as th e electric chart;e which It car:
rlcs.
·
So we see that by tne discovery of tlJ.e elccb:on we have s imply
discovered
a snialler ldnd of atom tban the old chemical on.e.
Th.e
.
electron theory, then, still main~r..ius the granular s tructure of tb6
ether or medium of space.
I ought to say, however, that there are
still some physicists, notably, Sir Oliver Lodge, who seem to main·
tain that the medlttm of space Js not gl'anular or of a discrete structure, but that It is a "perfec t) ~- con tinuous, incompressible and fnex:
tens ible m edium t!liing nil space wltlwut Interstices or breach ot continultr."
T he continuous medium theory, however, bas so far completely fail ed to gh·e tb e slightest clue to the cause of gravitation,
and all that Lodge h&s to say Is that "gravitation is explicabl e by
differences of pressure tn the medium, cause1l by some acUon between
It and matter not yet tmderstood."
Re ts right tn saying that tt 1s
caulled by ditfcr cncos of p re~ su re In the medium. but h e cannot find
the proper mcch:tnlsm to produce these D(>cessr..r y differences ot
pressure In his contfnuo·Js medium.
By an elaborate analysts R (>ynolds s hows that the medium or space
.
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Structure of the Universe
391
must be granular in lts constitution. He shows tlat space ls occu·
pled by uniform spherical grains of changeless shape and size.
It
ts occupied by what be calls "spherical grains in normal plllng." The
opening statement in hls "Sub-mechanics of the Universe" is:
"By this research it is shown that there Is one and only one,
conceivable purely mecbanlcnl system capable of accounting for aJl
the physical ev1dence, as we know 1t, 1n the universe."
•
"The sys tem is neither more nor less than nn arrangement of
Indefinite extent, of uniform spherica l grains generally In normal pil·
lng so close that the grains cannot change thefr neighbours, although
continually In relative motion with each other; the grains being of
changeless shape and size ; thus constituting to a first approxlmntton,
an elas tic medium with six axes of elast icity symmetrically plaood."
It ts worthy of note that Newton also had tbe conception tbat
the real sub-stratum of the physical universe is granular In tts
structure, for In the fourth edit ion of his "Optlcks" page 375 he says:
"All tblngs considered, it seems probable that God ln the beginning
form ed matter In soUd , massy, hard, Impenetrable, n1ovnble particles,
of sucb s izes, figures and with such other properties, and in such j.lroport1on in space as mosl conduced to the end fo,. which he formt:d
them, and that these primitive particles being solids, are Jncompnrn.·
bly harder than any porous bodies compounded of them : ever. so
very hard ns never to wear or break to pieces; no ord inary power
being
.. :\ble to divide what God blmselt made one In the first creation."
•
The question hns been asked, why a re most sports but the va r:ln.nts
of one object, the propulsion of a sphere ? Bllllards, baseball. polo,
golf, l!llnglog, ma rbles, squash, handball, foo tball, racquets, cr:ic~et
boekey, bagatelle, tennis. shooting, pelota, all have as their basic pur·
sult the driving of a ball, the propulsion of o. spbe ~e.
Tipcat, shuttlecock nod top spinning a re the employment of modifications of th•~
sphere.
May the reason not be that ·poor mortal ma n a t.templs oy
these means to get In a small. way into the tremend.ous scheme of
the universe, which ls the everlasting movement of the spheres?
•
The Fu11damentaZ Atom.
•
,
We considered above the size of the chemical atom and a lso the
approximate slz~ of tbe el<!Ctron, a ~gregatlons of which, according to
the electron theory make up the chomlcal atom. We saw bow very
small the electron is as compared with the cbemtcal atom. We s.hall
now enquire as to the size of the grato in Reynolds' granular medium.
Reynolds shows that Its t:Uametcr is the seven hundred thousand
mUUonth part of the wave length of violet light.
A wave of vtolet
light is about the 70 thousandth par t of an inch in length.
Reynolds' cosmic grain, then, Is very much smaller than even the elec·
tron. It is at least as much smaller tha n the electron as the electron is smaller thnn the chemical atom, the sizes of all three being
equally Inconceivable. This cos mic grain of Reynolds ts the absolute
or fundamental atom of the universe.
It is the smalle.at entJty
which can exist In space.
R eynolds has shown by dynamical and
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Stmcture of tlte Universe
392
•
mathematical considerations that thls grain Is t he smallest possible
enUty which can exist ln t he universe.
It Is the "absolutely r1g1d
granule, ultimate atom or prlmordlan." In Section Vlll. of the
"Sub-mechanics" he says:
"Although the absolutel y r1g1d atom Is as old as any conception
tn physical philosophy, the properties attributed to lt are outside any
experience derh·ed from the properties ot matter.
In this respect the
perfect atom is In th e same position, though in a dttrerent way, as
that other physical conception-the perfect ftuld. Both of these conceptions represent conditions to which matter tn one or other of Its
modes, apparently approximates, but to whtch, the results or all researches show, 1t can ne\'er attaln, although thls experience shows
that there is still something beyond.
• • • It becomes clear
therefore that any fundamental atom must be considered as something
outside of another order than-material bodies, the properties or
which are not to be considered as a consequence of the taws of motion and ('on servatton or energy in the medium, but as the prime
cause or these laws."
•
This last statement involves a very Important principle; tor,
whereas other theories or the atom have been based on the motion
of a so-called perfect fluid continuously ftlllng space, like Kelvin'~S
vortex atomic t heory, or upon an electronic system of electrostatic
and electromagnetlc forces, as developed by Thomson, Larmor and
Lodge, the atom in ttese systems being the rc8ult of the laws of motion and conservation ot energy, Reynold's fundam ental atoms or
cosmic grains, by their motions and arrangements are themselves the
cause of th e laws of motion and conservaUon or energy, tbe whole
explanation and philosophy being purely dynamical, Just as Newton's
explanation of the law of gTavltallon Is purely dynamical.
•
Arrangement or Piltng of the Orafns.
We come now to one or the most Important points In t he whole
subject; tbat Is, the arrangement or ptliog of the grains iD the
medium.
We have all doubtless seen cannon balls plied In heaps on
mllltary reservations.
Now, there are dlttereot ways In which shot
or other spheres may be piled. I have h ere before me on the table
slx different regular arrangements or piling of small rubber balls,
IUld In tbP.se dlfrerent arrangements the number of balls varies tn
proportion to the total volume or space occupied by the balls. There
are s tx regular arrangements In which balls touching each other may
be p lied, shown by these s ix models, and In each of these arrange.
menta. as stated, the full spaces or the s paces occupied by t he balls,
and the empty spaces or the Interstices between them vary.
I have
calculated the relation or proportion of full space to empty space in
these six d ifferen t arrangements, and .tlnd that In the closest arrangem ent or piling, where the grains are arranged In parallel tiers ln
triangular form, taking the total volume ot the pUe as l OQ, t he full
spaca occupied by the balls amounts to 79.818 a nd the empty space to
20.182, or nbout 4 to 1, whereas In the most open arrangement or pH·
lng, where the grains are placed vertica lly over ench other in parallel
tters In the squr.re position, like this m odel, the full space ls only
•
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Structure of the Universe
393
52.381 and the empty space 47.619, or about 11 to 10.
The other
four methods of p111ng He between these two extremes.
I append to
thi<J lecture the ftgures of the proportions of full space to empty space
In the sb arrangements.
One of Reynolds' most lnportant steps toward the discovery of
the cause of gravitation was the discovery of the dilatancy of gran·
ular media under pressure.
For Instance, when shot or sand or
other spherical gralnB are put Into a bag or other closed surface anti
shaken, they settle Into a very close position, and when ln this posl·
tlon the spaces or mtentlces which exist between the grains are
about the smallest possible. They mny then be satd to be In what
Reynolds calls "normal plllng" and when In this position the shape of
the bag containing the shot or grains cannot be changed without at
t.he same time changing its bulk or volume; because U you endeavor
to change the shape of the containing vessel under such conditions,
you are at the same time disturbing the grains from their closest
possible positions Into another arrangement less close, whereby the
spaces or Interstices between the grains are enlarged, thereby pro·
ductng a vacuum, or working against atmospheric pressure. I have
here two hollow rubber balls, one filled with small shot and com·
pletely closed, except for a. small opening which does not allow the
shot to escape, and Into which a glass tube is inserted to measure the
dilatation. Colored water Is poured Into the bag through the tube to
fill the Interstices between the shot. and If the bag .is then subjected
to distortional squeezing, &s tt now is, the water, as you see. sinks
in the tube. It is drawn into the bag to till the expanded spaces between the grains caused by the distortion.
This is an experimental
model universe.
I have here another similar bag filled only with
water, but. as you see, when it ls similarly squeezed the water rises
In the tube. I have here also one of these thin rubber balloons which
children play with, filled with sand and just enough water to fill the
Interstices between the sand when lying flat as you see it now. It ts
closed tightly so as not to admit any air.
It is now placed on Its
edge, and, as you see, sustains a weight of 200 pounds without ftlnchtng.
This appeal'8 to be nothing short of magical, but when the
phenomena of dilatation of granular media under pressure Is understood it Is perfectly simple. (ExperimenL)
This remarkable property of diJatancy of all granular media wa.e
dlscovered by Re.y nolds.
It also furnished blm the clue to the
cause of gravitation.
In order to get granular media under pressure
It must be bounded by a closed surface. Reynolds says : "If, as 1D
the universe, the grains In normal plllng extend 1ndeftnltely, there
can be no mean motion of the boundaries, whatever the pressure
may be; and thus the grains are virtually within a closed surface."
Here Is a model made out of small rubber balls of the way the
cosmic grains are arranged In space according to Reynolds.
This
arrangement Is what he calls •'normal ptllog," and ts such that the
grains are plac-ed In a set of squarely formed layers horizontally, eaeb
sphere resting on four in the layer below, and In its turn supporting
four in the layer above, tbese last four being vertically over the Ant
four.
Besides touching these elgh t In adjoining layers It touches
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
394
Str·ucturc of the Universe
four in its own layer, making twelve In all.
There are therefore
twelve grains piled around each grain.
This then Is the arrangement or piling or the grains throughout the universe of s pace where
no matter exists.
Matter is A.bsence of (Jrain.a•
•
Where matter exists there is a different arran gement In the piling
of ,the grains, and the regular or normal piling of the grains is broken.
There is a less number of grains per unit volume in the spots where
matter exists than there ts ln the regula r medium of s pace. Where
t his d eficl~ncy which results· In what we call "matter" exists. there
Is what Reynolds calls "abnormal piltng" of the grains.
Tbls de·
ticiency forms a sort or crack, or gap, or loose joint in the medium,
und th e re Is a. break In the gearing of tbe grains between the mat ter
and the m edium outside. An atom of matter cons ists of a nucleus of
grains In normal plllog surrounded by a surface or s pherical shell of
grains in a bnormal plling.
The gralns in abnormal piling fMm
whnt Reynolds calls "a singular sur(ace of misfit" between the reg,llar
pHiog Inside. which form s the nucleus of the material atom a nd t he
normall y plied grains of t he medium outs ide. This "surface of miF>·
fit'' or s pherical sh ell togeth er with Its nucleus ls called a "uegallve
inequ ality'' and t he magnitude of the negative In equality ts reckoned
IJY t he numbel' of grains which are deficient, and ns the number ot
grains present in a given YOlume of t he medium determ.l nes the mass
of the mediu m, a n absence of grain s tncans an absence of mass.
Therefore, matter Is absence of mass or negative mass.
Th ese sur·
faces ot misfit or spherical cracks In the medium are places of weak·
ness In t he medium, a nd H l.s shown th at they tra,·el through the
medium after lhe manne r of soli tary waves.
•
ilfeclll and R elati ve M ot ion of the M ediu m.
•
We have llO\V to consider whether the g rains of the medium are
fixed and s tationary in th eir plares, or whether they have motion
among one another.
Reynolds shows that the grains of the medium
nrc not fixed but tha t they have a mean and relative motion.
Tbe
medium Is nol Inert and rigid and lifeless.
It thrills with energy
and pulsates with universal motion.
It possesses two kinds of mo·
t1on, ttrst, the relative motion of the grains among one another, and,
secon d, a mean motion, which is a motion of the mass o! the
med ium as a whole trom on e position in s pace to another.
Tho
average relatl\'e velocity of the grains among one another ts shown
to be about one anu one-third feet per s~ ond , wh1le the mean path
of the grain, that Is, the average distance a grain has to move before
it strikes Its neigllbor. is shown to be t.he four t housand millionth
part of the diameter of the grain. It is tbe relative motion of the
grains among one another which renders the medium elastic. and, as
Reynolds says, is the prime cause of elasticity In the universe. The
mean and relat.lvo motions ot tho medium are illustrated by the
movement of a cloud of dust, a swarm of bees, a shower of ball, a
curren t of air, a stream of water, or a cloud In the sky. In each of
these phenomena we have movement of t he mass of the particles as a
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
•
Structure of the Universe
395
whole and also the indJvldual movement of the particles of which
the mass is composed wlth relation to each other.
The movement
of the mus as a whole Is called the mean motion, and the relative
rrovement of the particles In the mass Is the relative motion of t h e
medium.
The Pres11ure and Strets of the M edium.
Let us now ask , What ts the pressure ot this medium of s pace!
We certainly do not feel its pressure; neither do we feel atmospheric
pressure, though we know that the atmospheric pressure on t he s urface of the eArth at sea level Is nearly 15 pounds on t he square tncb.
At great ocean depths we also know that the hydraulic pressure
amoun ts to several tons per square inc.h; and we also know that as
we go down into the earth the pressure of the surrounding rocks
and s trata increases very rapidly, unt il at great depths 1t amounts
to hund reds of tons on the square inch.
W e probably do not realize
that en~ry square. foo t of surface of u. man's bod}r is s ubjected to an
atmospheric pressure of about one ton , so lf the surface area of a
human body is say 10 teet, that body is subjected to a total pressure
of about 10 tons. We are ord inarily uo('onsctous of such a pressute,
because ft presses upon us equally ln all directions, but tr this pressure
should te suddenly removed from one slde of our body we wottld soon
realize It, and the pressure on the other s ide would burl us th rough
space with the speed or a. cannon ball.
Locatcu as we nro on our Uny ea rth , wbi<:h is wbirlfng through
infi nite S[Jnce at n sr>eed of 19 miles per second, we are immersed in
a vast fiherea l ocean.
Can we ascertain whether the medium of this
ocean bas any pressure? Reynolds shows tbnt the mca.n pressure of
the medium of this universal ocean of space is ne-arly sc\·cn hundre_d
and tl.ft y thousand tons on the square lnrb, being more than three
thousand lime!:! greater than the s t rongest material can Rus taln. A
statement like th is seems paradoxical, and " 'e cannot b y any stretch
of the imaglm\\ ion conceh •e ot such a p ressure existing in what we
hnYe hitherto rcgartled as empty spat•e.
Yet s uch Is tlu:~ sober t r uth,
found necessary to accou nt for the physica l facts that we know.
Clerk Maxwell, the great Scotch mathematician and physicist, arrived
at the same conclusion a.s to pressure anct s tress of lhe ether from a
co n~i ct e ration or electromagnetic and electrostatic torces.
In his
article on "Attraction" In the Encyclopoedia Brittanica, after discuss·
1ng thl.s subject, he snys: "The state of stress, therefore, which we
must s uppose to exist in the invisible medium Is 3,000 llmea greater
than that which the s trongest s teel cou ld support."
Now it seems rather strange to us at first that the medium of
apace fs of s uch great density.
W e have been accustomed all our
lives to think of matter as being in fact the only solid reallty, and
universal s pace as simply nothing. It will thus be seen that the old
style phflosophtcal materialist will find slight comfort in R eynolds'
theory, for the materialist's so-called real matter Is shown to be only
a kJnd of froth or foam or bubble in the universal granular ocean.
which is ten thousand times denser than water. Th e presence of
what we call "matter'' In space means a place where th ere is a sort
•
D1g1t1Z
a by Gf"\no le
Structure of the Unitterse
•
of crack, a gap or fissure in the untform medium. It may be Interesting here to mention Kelvin's vortex atomic theo~y of matter, trom
wblch so much was expected, but which has falled to give any clue
to gravity, and any theory of matter which does not contain a solu·
tton of the problem of gravitation can ha\'e no permanent value, for
gravitation .1s the supreme problem before physics to-day. The next
great advance In physical science lies ln the solution of thls problem.
The Vortex Atomio TheOf't/.
Kelvin conceived a perfect tluid continuously filling space, and be
supposed that what we call an atom of matter is the rotating portion
of this tluld.
We can make air, water or any other flu id more or
less rigid by imparting rapid motion to it. The motion dl.tfert~ntiatea
that portion of the fluid which Is In motion from that portion which
is not In motion, Hke the smoke ring which sometimes ascends fr om
the funnel of a locomotive.
The idea was that 1f the fluid were
fTlcUonless and vortex motion once started In 1t that motion would
He conceived that atoms mlght be composed of
continue forever.
such rings of ether In motion, the ether being supposed to be the
perfect tluld. The atoms were a sort of ether squirts. This theory
of matter was quJte Interesting and something new at the time, and
the dynamics of the theory were worked out by Helmholtz and J . J .
Thomson, but notwithstanding that it promised so much, It has been
for the most part given up, and 1t has not been able to throw any
light on tbe problem of gravitation.
I spoke about the electron
theory of matter tn a previous part of this lecture. Neither has this
theory, however fascinating in many respects, been able to produce an
explanation of gravity.
The gravitational force is entirely different
from and belongs to another order than the electrostatic and electro.
magnetic forces, and all the endeavors to get an explanation or gravitation out of them ba"e led to negative results.
Mass.
•
We have spoken about mass. Now Jet us see what mass is. or
course. mass has bee:t defined as the amount or matter In a body, or
the inertia of a body. We should not confound mass wlth weight.
The book which is l:;Jng on this table has a certain weight here
which can be ascertained exactly, but if I t ransferred lt to the Equator
of the earth it would weigh less than it does here, and tr I took tt to
the North Pole it would weigh more.
In other words, the weight of
a body on the earth's surface depends on tts distance from the een·
ter of the earth, and vice versa, and we know that the surface of
the earth at the Equator is 13 miles further away from the cen ter of
the earth than the North Pole is. But the book at any place on the
earth's surface would still have exactly the same mass, and indeed
lt would still have the same mass at any place in the unlvene.
Weight depends on the force of gravity, and we know the force of
gravity varies at di1ferent points of the earth's surface, according to
their distance from the earth's center; but the mass does not vary
so long as the law of the conservation of matter holds good. If tbe
book were placed mllltons of miles from the earth away out ln
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Stmct11rc of th e Uni-;•crsc
397
interstellar space where there was no planet or sun to attract It, it
would remain suspended In space without motion, and would have no
weight; but Its QaSS would be the same as before.
How Is this!
Because it would require exactly the same amount of force to mov~
lt over a certain distance in a certain time.
Mass ls measured by
the amount of force r equired to move it over unit distance In unit..
time, and unit mass is that quantity of mass which is moved unit dis·
tance in unit ttme by unit force, no matter in what part of the unt\erse It may be pla<'ed, whether it may be on earth, or on the planet
Mars or Jupiter or billions of miles away in interstellar space.
Bu t
this only g ives us a measure of mass. It does not tell u.s what mass
Is.
It is only In recent yenl13 by the study of X rays, cathode rays,
and other elect rical discharges in the Crookes' tnbe that phys ical
science has been able to galn some definite knowledge on this subject.
As 1 stated in a previous part of this lecture, a good deal Is now
known about the behaviour of the particles, called electrons or cor·
puscles, which make up the discharge which passes from the negatlve
to the positive pole of the tube.
The mass or these particles, tbe
electric charge which they c-arry, and the velocity with which they
travel have been measured. These particles may be called electric
points, or electric point charges, and it is found that their mass is
not a constant quantity, but that it varies with the speed with wbtch
they trn vel ln tbe tube.
As their vel&clty ts increased their mass
te<:omes greater, as It is diminished their mass becomes less; so that
their mass Is a function of their velocity. They bave no mass apart
from motion.
This being the case, their momentum Is a lso a tunc·
tlon of tbelr velocity, as is also their energy, for momentum is the
product O( mass and velocity and energy the product of mass and the
square of tbe velocity.
I s poke about the electrons which whirl
around inside the system of the atom wi th very high velocities. In
some cases with nearly the velocity of light. Calculations have been
given by Sir J. J. Thomson sho-.vtng the enormous amount ot electronic energy due to the motions of the electrons inside the atomic
system.
It Is found that Inside the atoms of one gram ot h ydrogen
gas there is conta ined an amount of electronic or corpuscular energy,
wb.ich if set tree, would be sufficient to raise one mtllton tons 300 feet
h igh.
We know the energy which is llberated in a n e·xploston of
dynamite or guncotton. T hat Is atomic energy, caused by what we
call chemical aft\nit)·.
But we see how much greater sub-atomic
energy is. Perhaps the day will com e when man wlli know bow to
set free this sub-atomic energ}•, but for i.be J)resent lt ts probably better that be does not know.
•
N enative Inequalities.
The ordinary chemical atom, then, seems to be a sor t of bole or
slnk or hollow place in some medium which tills space, and to be a
locus or point i nto wblcb pours tremendouB energies from t his
m edium.
Thls hole or slnk. or hollow place in space wblch ls the
locus of the atom Is what R eynolds calls a "negative inequality" In
the medium, or a "singular surface of misfit" due to a deftclency of
grains below the n umber In the regular normal piling in tbe s ur-
D1Q1t1z a by G!F'gk
•
Structure of the
·
UtJi~1erse
rounding space. He calculates that the real core of the atom consists
of the normally piled grains, and that this normally piled core 11
surrounded by a spherical s hell containing a deficiency of grains, the
thickness of this spherical shell being probnbly about ftve times the
diameter of the grain.
Tbls spherical shell ls surrounded on the
outside by the normally ptled grains wblcb extend outwards Into
space tnde~nilely.
Wherever these spherical n egative lnequaliti~
exist, however, there Is set up in the medium surrounding them a
system of strains due to the pressure of the medium, which result In
producing a curvature ln the normal plllng of the medium.
I wlll now try to show how the motion of these negative tnequall·
Ues which we call matter Is possible in such a medlulll, and bow these
negative lnequallties ~;nw itate t oward each other t hrough the
medium according to th" lr.w of gravitation. How does matter move
throttgb s pace? How dces the earth move through space at the rate
of nearly 20 mlles per second? Reynolds' solution of the problem Ls
very Interesting.
It moves by propagation.
He compares 1t to a
bubble rising in water.
He says: "• • • it follows t.s two negative cenlers approach each other under their mutual attractions t ho
mass in the medium recedes, which Is an inverslc.n or the precon·
cetved Ideas.
Such action however is not outs ide experience, since
every bubble which ascends from the bottom of a glass of soda water
involves the same t.ction.
The matter In the bubble having the
density of alr requires the descent of au equal volume of water a t
a deiUllt.y SOO times greater than that of nir.
It is the negative
fnequaltty In the dc.:lslty of matter, which under t h e varyin g press ure
of the we.ter cauaes the negative or downward displacement of the
material medium- water and the posltive or upward displacemen t of
the negative inequality in the density within the singular surface."
Propagation of "Matt e1·"
Throug1~
Space.
I ha ve h ere a dl'zen billiard balls, divided Into two rows of halt
a dozen each close toget her, one row a little higher than the other
and resting in a continuous groove, so the upper ones mar run down
and strike the lower ones.
There is a ImP of say 18 inches between
the t wo rows.
We allow the upper six balls t o run down and st rike
the end of the lo"l\•er s.x one by one. The result wlll be that a s each
ball from t he upper row strikes the end ball of the lower row the
ball at the far end of the lower row will run away from the lower I"OW
the moment of the Impact of the ball from the upper row, and it will
run away with the same Apeed as the speed of the impinging ball
which Htrikes the front end.
rn other words, all th e motion or momen tum of the s t r ikln:: ball will be communicated through the whole
row of lower balls inst::ultnneou s ly and will be delivered t o the last
ball, wh ich will carry nwny t he motion or momen t um.
Meantime,
as each ball runs away from the rear end and one comes in in front
the whole six balls h ave run down and taken up their positions in
front, deliver ing their momentum to the lower row, the whole row
of lower balls will have moved fo rward Its entire length, or six diam·
eters.
Tbls llhtstrntes how positive and negative momentum may
move through a body at the same time in opposite directions, tor as
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Structure of the Universe
399
each ball strikes the f ron t end 1t communlcatas a certAin amount of
positive momentum to the mass as a whole, which travels through
the mass In a positive direction, and an equal amount of moment um
travels through the ma::;s In an opposite, or n egative dlrectlon, which
results 1n the motion In the opposite direction of the mass as a
whole.
The real motion of the m ass Is In the opposite direction to
that of the impinging balls.
It the balls moved quick enough the
eye would lead u s to suppose that t h e m otion of the lower row or
balls was continuous, and not done by successive Impacts, just as l.n
moving pictures which appear to represen t a continuous scene, but
which we know Is made up of a multitude of sepa~nte scenes taken In
rapid s uccession.
We may take the gnp between the two rows of
balls to represent the Inequality which Is to propagate through the
medium, for instance tbe earth moving through space.
There La an
incoming of grains In f ron t and a leaving of gralnR In the rear, the
momentum of the Incom ing grains being trans mitted Ins ta ntaneously
throughout the whole mc.ss from front io rear, the real mass of the
medium moving 1n the opposite dirootion to t.bnt of the Inequality.
Reynolds says: "If the medium Is stationary and the molecules are
moving with the earth the grains wlth!n the s urfaces do not partake
ot the mea!l motion of these surfaces, being replaced continuously by
other grains by the nctton or pro!)aga tton, by which the singular s urfaces in their motion are continually absorbing the grains in front
and leaving those behind without any mean ctfect on the motion of the
grains. And thus there is perfect freedom of the molecules or aggregate matter, alt hough the grains which cons tit u te the nuclei are chnnging at the rate of 20 miles n second.
To be s tanding on a floor that
is r unning away at a rate of 20 miles a second wit hout being <:onsdous of nny motion is our continual experience, but to realizt t.hat
s uch is the case is certainly a tax on the hpaglnatlon.
Such motion
has all the character of a wave in th e medium, and that Is what the
singular surfaces which we call mat ter are-waves. We a re all
waves."
Cause of Grav itation.
We now come to what Is really the most Important part of our
subject, namely, the cause of gravitation, and It you have been able
to comprehend what has a lready b~n Slated, I th ink you wlll have no
trouble In understanding what Is n ow to b3 expla ined, that Is, why
two bodies or masses of matter in space may approach each other
according to the Newtonian law of gravitation.
In the first place we must rid our minds of the idea that t here
Ia any RUl"h thing as ')ltt ractlon" Inherent In messes of mattor them·
selves. Though in popular lan guage we s peak about the s un attract·
log t he earth, the earth attracting the moo,n, etc., In reality they do
All motions are really produced by pressure
not attract each other.
of some kind or oth er exerted upon t he bodies which move. Air cur·
rents, ocean currents, the. titles, as well a.s movements ot. r igid bodies
are pl'oduced by pressure exerted in some way, and the gravltatlon or
motion of bodies In .universal s pace Is no exception to this. R eynolds
s hows that wherever these ''llegath·e inequalities" or "singular s ur·
races or mis fit" which we have seen to be matter, exis t . there we h a ve
400
Structure of the Universe
a sort of gap or cracK in tbe granular medium, which forms a surface of weakness. and it is shown that the pressure of the medium
is less between these "negative inequalities" or surfaces of weakness
than it Js on the outside. There is a strain set up in the granular
medium in normal plltng between them, which produces a curvature
In the normal plllng.
Thls produces space variations or dilatations
between the grains Jn the curved normal ptling. These spaces vary
according to the degree of the curve, and the total of the enlarged
spaces or dilatations so produced by the curvature is exactly equal
to the total of the spaces from whtch the grains are absent In the
negative Inequalities which produce the curve.
Owing to thls, as
bas b~n said, the pressure of th e medium Is less betw~n th e negative Inequalities or masses of matter than lt Is in the medium outside, with the result that the extra outside pressure drives the nega·
tlve in3qualltles together. Tba old physics calls this " space variation
of the potenUo.J." As the bodies approach the curvature Is annthllated
and t he medium is restored to the regular normal plllng.
It is somewhat dtmcult at first for one to understand this process;
but the dynamical rea&onlng upon whJch lt is based ts thoroughlY
sound.
Reynolds says: "Thls Jaw of a ttl action, wbfcb satlsO.es all
the conditions of gravitation, Is now shown by definite analysis to result from n egative 1ocol inequaHtles In an otherwise unUorm granular
medium under a mean pressure equal In all directions, as a conse·
quence of the property of dilatancy In such media. when the grains
are so close that there is no dUJuston and infinite relative motion and
further It Is shown to be the only attraction which satisfies the con·
ditfon.s of gravitation In a purely mech a.nlcal system."
"Gravitation Is not the result of that dilatation which resulta
f rom uniform parallel strains in the medium In normal ptling, but results solely from those components of the dilatations caused by the
gpace variation ot the ituoorcl l>train.a.
''Thus, as long as t he dilatation stralns are parallel there Is no
attraction ; but 1f there is curvature In the strains there will be
etrorts, proportional to tho Inverse square or tbe dis tance, to cause
the negative Inequalities to approach from a finite distance.
"Thus gravitation Is the rsu1t of those components of the dilatations (taken to a tlrst approximation) wblcb are caused by the variations of the components of the inward strains, caused by curvature
in the normal plllng of the medium.
"The other components of the strains, being parallel distortions,
which satisfy the conditions or geometrical similarity, do not aJreet
the efforts.
''Then. since lf tbe grains were lndetlnitely small, while the curva·
•
ture tn the normal piling was O.nJte, there would be no effort.
Alld
multiplying th.i s parameter by the curvature of the medium, and agaJn
by the mean pressure o! the medium, the product measures the In·
tensity of the efforts to approach.
"The dilatation diminishes as the centres or the negative lnequall·
ties approach, and work Js 1one by the pressure outslde the singular
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Structure of the Uuiverse
401
surfaces, to bring the s ingular s u rfaces of the n egllttve lnequallties
together•
• "The efforts to ~use the approach of the centers correspond ex·
acUy to the gravitation of matter it matter represents the absence
of mass, and t hus the inversion o! preconceived Ideas is complete.
Matter is measured by the absence of mass necessary to complete the
normal pfllng.
And t he effort to bring the negative inequalities
together is also an effort on the mass to recede ; and sin ce the actions
are those of positive pressure, there ls no attraction lnvolved, the
efforts being the result of t he virtual diminution of the pressures
inwards. and In t h is inversion we have a complete, quantitative, purely
meehanlcaJ explanation of the cause of gravitation.
"The mechanical actions on which this a ttraction depends are com·
pletelr exposed in tl~e foregoing analysis, and offer a complete explan·
ntlon of the cause of gravitation."
Positive In equalit ies.
•
In addition to t heir being " negative Inequalities'' in the medium
or places where there is an absence ot grains, there mny be places
where there are a greater number of grains than exists In the normal
p111ng, and such places are called "positive Inequalities" in the
medium.
In these cases the curvatu re which wtll exis t In the nor·
ma.l piling between t wo "positive Inequalities" will be the reverse of
the curvature In the rase ol t wo n egative Inequalities, producing a
repulsion between two such positive centers. which wtll drive s uch
posllive Inequalities or centers awa~· from each other, just the oppos ite of gravitational attraction.
There would, therefore, be no
evidence In the universe or such positive inequalities. as through
the foree of repulsion they would be scattered to th e remote regions
of the universe.
Other Phen omena Explained.
What Is electricity! Reynolds explains that electricity Is due to
what be calls a "complex tnequallty.''
T hat ls, a certain clus ter of
grains may be by some means moved from one position ln space to
another, and a current or electrlclt)• Is a flowing back ot these grains
to their former positions.
Calculations are gtven to sbow that tbe
efforts to revert In the case or s uch complex ineQualllles correspond
to electricity.
Magnetis m Is due to rotational s tresses In the med ium bet ween
spherical <'lusters aud ,;urrounding g rains, the stresses being opposite
ways round in different portions.
The s trains accompanying t hese
rotational stre&ses involve dilatation, and attractions and repulsion s
wlll be exhibited.
The theory also explains other physical phenomena, such as
cohesion, llgbt, h eat, aberration, refraction and polarization ot llgbt,
the association and dis-sociation of molecules, the d ispersion of th e
Reynolds says: "Con·
spect rum, and other natura l p henomena.
slderlng t hat not one of these phenomena had perviously received a
meeban1cal explanation It appea rs bow Indefinitely s mall must be
D1Q1t1z a by
Structure of the Utaiversc
the probabiUty that there should be another structure of the un1·
\·erse wblcb would satis fy the same evidence."
Btep1 Taken B11 Reynol!U.
Some may ask, it Reynolds' theory is aucb a great one why ls It
that we do not bettr more about it?
Also what does the sclentlftc
In answer to the first question I may
world think of the theory?
say that there has scarcely yet been time since the publlca\.1on of
Reynolds' work for the theory to become known.
The ' 'Submechanics of the U ni~terse" was published in 1903, but the mathematical dltftculttes of the work are so great, that tew are able to
grasp the proofs.
Neither are all the proofs of the theory in tbls
work. The ftnal theory ls the re~ml t of flve successive steps or dis·
covertes.
These steps or discoveries were made. as Re)•nolds says,
"apart from any iden that they would be steps towards the mechanical
These steps and dlscov·
solution of the problem of the universe."
ertes are to be found in Volumes I. and IJ . ot Reynolds' Scientific
Papers.
The first of these steps was taken in 1874, the second tn
1879, the third ln 1883, the fourth in 1885, and the fifth In 1895.
Each deals with a particular physlr"'J problem, and taken altoget her
tbey form the base on which the great superstructure, "The Subm echanics of the Universe" fs bullt.
I append to thts lecture the
names of the subjects dealt with in the tlve succestilve steps referred
to. So it need not be u matter of surprise that more is not beard
or the theory yet.
Solved By A Paradox.
In addition to this the ideas which flow from the theory seem at
first strange to our mlndH aud to our preconceived Ideas, and tt is
only by rational analysis that we can arrive at the conceptions which
the theory contains.
Tha solution of the problem or gravitation
seems to be solved by a paradox. Yet this should not deter us from
attacking lt.
The histor y ot science rather proves tbat every Intel·
leclual advance realizes a pnradoxlcal opinion, and that "intellectual
development may be t raced to the successive discomfitures of common
sence:·
Who ever believes progress to be as certain In the fu ture
as It has been In the past, must admit , a priuri the exis tence or pben·
omena which contHct with what we know at presen t, and from the
fact that man 's knowleJge about the world has received continual
ttdditlons, it Immediately foll ows that to everv time other truths are
given than those hitherto demonstrable.
Every generation bas sup·
posed t hat. lt stood on the a pex of the pyram id, and has supposed all
phenomena of nature to be deducible from just those laws known to
it, so t hat all f uture generations had the mere subordinate task of
dragging new stones on to a structu re of which the architectural
<:on ceptlon was complete.
But true progress Is not extensive but
vertical. and so it has always been such Investigators as were tree
from tbis prejudice who have been destined to make revolutionary
d lscovcrles.
The history of knowledge Is 1lke the development of a mine.
When the ore h as been worked out down to one level a new level must
•
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
Structrtre of the U1li'l•erse
403
be started deeper down.
The ore on one level will on ly last a certaJn time, and If we would keep enlarging the mine the explorations
must go to deeper levels.
In like manner in the history of science
we find that science reaches a certain stage under the domination of
some reigning method or idea, a!ld that It Ls then unable to go any
f urther until a new discovery is made, or untU the mine of knowlThis gives science a
edge is tapped, as it ,.·ere at a deeper level.
new Impulse and new ideas and knowledge ftow f rom such discovery.
Such for instance were the great discoveries or Copernicus and Newtoo, and I think that Re}Tnolds' theory of th e cause of gravitation
Is destined to be another epoch making discovery.
It is an inversion
of Ideas hitherto conceived as to matter and mass, from which wlll
probably ftow a series of v.ronderfu l discoveries as to the true mechanism or the universe In which we live.
Reynolds' explanation of the motion of matter through space Is
in itself a new and most wonderfu l conception.
It takes place by
t>ropagatlon.
Propagation mea ns generation, renewal.
The motion
of the earth through space ls not a bodily translation . but tbe move·
ment of a fonn or wave having the shape ot the earth, by means of
an exchange of momentum between the cosmic grains on opposite sides
of the surface, just as the gap between the two rows of balls in the
experiment which you saw. moves forward as the balls pass across
from one surface to tbe opposite one. The gap b<::twcen the two rows
of balls is the ''negative lne<;uallty," wblcb we call "matter." Reynolds pu ts It : "Thus lt ts that the lnequaltty In density, the integral
of which Is the volume ~~ the grains, the replacement ot which
would re-;tore tbe unlfor.ntty of the medium, obliterating tbe
Inequality, constHutes the mass propagated. And as this, for a negative centre is negative, tts propagation requires the displacement of
no equlvaient positive mass In the opposite direction to that of propagation ot the negative Inequality." This is the supreme paradox of
the whole theory, and leads to an lnYersion of Ideas as to the structure
of the universe.
It would strike us as chimerical were It not established by sound mathematical and dynamical Investigation.
Remember also the statement o( Slr J . J . Thomson. a rrh•ed at from another
Hoe of Investigation that "all mass Is mass of the ether, all momentum,
momentum of the ett.er, and all kinetic energy kinetic energy of the
ether. This view, It sh ould be said. requires th e density of the ether
to be Immensely greater than that of any known substance.''
From these new views and conceptions I l ool~ for great developments in philosophy In the near future.
Notice& of th e Theory.
In regard to the scientific world. the theory has scarcely as yet
entered the stage or criticism. There have been some notices of the
tbeorr In England. The "Sub-mechanics of the Universe" was pubWhetham in bis "Recent Development of Phynlcnl
lished in 1903.
Science" publhsh ed recently, referring to Reynolds' work, says: "The
mathematical analysis by which these deductions are established is
at.tempt will stand the criticisms that wlll be directed against It ; bul
, ·ery complex and di1Hcult, and lt Is yet too .s oon to say If this bold
•
D1g1t1z a by GGogle
.
-
404
Stru cture of tire Uui'(!f!rse
Professor Osborne Re)·nolds ' great reputation and the twenty years
he bas labored at this research wlll ensure for It a c.areful consldera·
Uon from those competent
to judge of Its merits."
.
Profess or J . D. E verett, at the end of an article on "Kormal Piling" pu blished In the Philosophical Magazine, says: '' 1 have n ot made
any attempt to verify the elaborate stat istica l calculations with which
Profe~>sor Reynolds' paper abounds.
My present purpose is not conI rovE.'rsy but explanation, and the style of the paper Is so exceedingly
t echnical 1 h a t a good deal of explanation seems to be necessary before
an tntelllgent c.:ontroversy ean ~g in .
I have cbleftr a imed a~ an
uplanatlon of the geomet rlc·al conditions which underlie the system
suppose{! , lhereb)' clearing the way for more searching crltlctsm, and
helping to ward<o the working out of the very fruit ful suggestions
which tho theory contains,"
Professor G. H. Bryan, In a review of Reynolds' work to "~atu re"
concludes by sa ying : "It may safely be described as one of the most
remarkable a t tempts t 't~t h ave been made in recent years to formulate a dynamical system of accounting for all the phys ical phenomena
at present known. A theory such as Is here set forth may not Improbably play the same part in modern t~cle nce that was assumed by the
atomic theory and t.he kinetic theory of gases in the science of the
time when these theories were propounded.
It may be confidently
ant klpa ted t hat Professor Osborne R eynolds' granular medluru will
play an important part In the physics of tbe fu ture."
11l/htence on PhilosophJI.
What wlll be the influence of Reynolds ' theory on philosophy?
So far as thls Ia concernt-d I think lt Is destined to play a very important part In philosophy.
Pre\•lous systems of philosophy have
been very Ignorant as to the s tructure of the universe.
They have
been composed mos tly of metaphysical gues.'lwork.
Philosophy requires the aid of positive scie nce to explain the fundamental arrangement of the universe ; and hitherto no melllum bas ever been suggested which would cause a statistical force of attraction between two
bodies at a dlnstance.
The explanation of gravitation as enunciated
by R eynolds carries wit h it probably the greatest scientillc conception
that has ever entered the mind of man, and any philosophy of the
future which has any pretenUons to arrive at the truth must take
R ey nolds' theory lnt.o conslderaUon.
Notwlths t.aodlng all the great
systems or philosophy which have been s pun from the brain of man
throughout the ages, not one of the m bas been able to explain the
simplest and mos t familiar phenoo1enon, vi~.• the fall of a stone t.o the
ground. Ever s ince man bas been upon the earth b e has seen the
'Phe nomena caused by g ravitation.
H e bas seen the avalanch e hurtling down the mountain s id e, the rivers rolling onward to the sea, and
-countle!'is other phe nomena caused by gravity wh ich happened dally
"before his eyes. T o t he agtronomcr every mo,•emenl or the heavenly
:bodies Is ca used by gra\·lty; the geologist bas constantly before his
•<;yes evldenc:es of Its a t'tlon In the formati on of t he earth, and the
-pbys lologtst sees its ac tion tn the structure of our bodies; ln s horr,
th ere Is not a s ingle depa rtment or nature where gravity bas not
•
D1g1t1z a by Coogle
S trurtu rc of til,· Uni1·crsc
played a mos t Important role.
It Is t h e most unive rsal agent known.
And, notwiths tanding a ll t h is d oes It n ot seem ~t ra nge that lls ca use
h as r emntm:d un known tutll now ?
Yet , this n etld not s urpri3e us;
Cor the predominant charact eristic or m a n Is, a nd has always been
his Igno rance or t he thin ~ con cerning himself and nature a round h im.
Taking the bls t.o ry ot mank ind as extending over several thousand
years at least, we may say that i t w as only yeste rday that he learned
that his blood circulated In his body, t.h at the atmosphere h a d weight,
and thal t he earth wen t rou nd the su n.
'Vith the liberation of m a n 's
nllnd tbr.ough the nld o f sele uc~ be is now beginn ing to r ealize som ething of his own poss loll llles, and to cas t a pro phetic eye towards t h e
iuturc, w hich h o lds wl tb hl Its womb possibilities for him yet und reamed or, as t h e frull of his kno wlertge.
Man's mind is n ot yet
exhausted .
lt Is only begi nning its career ot conquest ove r nature.
Dr. Ca r l Ba ..us in his " P rogress of Physics In the Nineteen th C ~n­
tu ry" r emarks : "Jus t as the 19th cen tu r~· began with dyn am ics a nd
clost>d with ele<:trlclty, so the 20th century begins a n ew with dy n a mics
to r each a goa l. tho magn itude of which th e h uman min d can on ly
await wlth awe:·
Marc h 8, 1910.
J.. ist of t ile Steps W hich I,ed R eynolds to th e D 18cove ry of Grat;itation.
On t h e Extent a nd Action ot the H eati ng Surface of Steam Boile rs. Pages 81-85, Vol. l. P a pers on Mechanical and Phys ical
Subjects . l 8i4-5.
2. On Certnln Dim ens ional Properties o f Matte r in the Gaseous State.
Pages 257-390. Vol. J., Papens ou Mechanical and P hys ical Subjects. 1879.
1.
3.
On the Equations of Motion and t h e Bo undary Conditions for Viscous F luids. Pages 132·137. Vol. II ., Papers on Mechanical a nd
Phys ical Subjects. 1.883.
-4.
E%perlmen ts showing Dilatancy, a P ro perty of Granular Materia l,
possibly con ected wi th Gravitation. Pages 217·227, Vo l. II., Pa·
pers on Mechanical and Phys ical Subjects . 1886.
On the Dllatancy of Media Composed of Rlgld Particles In C-ontact.
Wit h Experimental J llust ratloos . Pages 203-216. Vol. II ., as
above. l l!S85.
5. On the Dynamica! Theorr of Incompressible Viscous Fluids a n d
the De lcrmlnatlon of the Criterion.
P:1ges 535-577. Vol. H .
Papers on Mechan ical and Physical Subjects. 1895.
- Ca mbritt oe University Preu. l...cmdon .
Relation of Full Space to Empty Bpace in Differmr t Piling~ of R ounit
Particles.
~ pace
of Full
Volume. Space.
52.3 1
100
1. Ve rtical P osition
59.864
First Tria n g ular P<>s itlon . ............ 100
"·
100
69.841
8. Second
••
79.818
100
4. Third
"
72. 7"i
100
6. Fixed P yramida l
100
7-l.830
6 Fixed' Quadrilateral
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47.619
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D1Q1t1z
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