to place, preferably on the upper part of the neck of the globe, a tinfoil coating which was connected to an insulated body, to the ground, or to the other terminal of the coil, as the highly conducting air weakened the effect somewhat, probably by being acted upon inductively from the wire w, where it entered the bulb at e.  Another difficulty—­which, however, is always present when the refractory button is mounted in a very small bulb—­existed in the construction illustrated in Fig. 29, namely, the vacuum in the bulb b would be impaired in a comparatively short time.

[Illustration:  FIG. 29.—­LAMP WITH INDEPENDENT AUXILIARY BULB.]

The chief idea in the two last described constructions was to confine the heat to the central portion of the globe by preventing the exchange of air.  An advantage is secured, but owing to the heating of the inside bulb and slow evaporation of the glass the vacuum is hard to maintain, even if the construction illustrated in Fig. 28 be chosen, in which both bulbs communicate.

But by far the better way—­the ideal way—­would be to reach sufficiently high frequencies.  The higher the frequency the slower would be the exchange of the air, and I think that a frequency may be reached at which there would be no exchange whatever of the air molecules around the terminal.  We would then produce a flame in which there would be no carrying away of material, and a queer flame it would be, for it would be rigid!  With such high frequencies the inertia of the particles would come into play.  As the brush, or flame, would gain rigidity in virtue of the inertia of the particles, the exchange of the latter would be prevented.  This would necessarily occur, for, the number of the impulses being augmented, the potential energy of each would diminish, so that finally only atomic vibrations could be set up, and the motion of translation through measurable space would cease.  Thus an ordinary gas burner connected to a source of rapidly alternating potential might have its efficiency augmented to a certain limit, and this for two reasons—­because of the additional vibration imparted, and because of a slowing down of the process of carrying off.  But the renewal being rendered difficult, and renewal being necessary to maintain the burner, a continued increase of the frequency of the impulses, assuming they could be transmitted to and impressed upon the flame, would result in the “extinction” of the latter, meaning by this term only the cessation of the chemical process.

I think, however, that in the case of an electrode immersed in a fluid insulating medium, and surrounded by independent carriers of electric charges, which can be acted upon inductively, a sufficiently high frequency of the impulses would probably result in a gravitation of the gas all around toward the electrode.  For this it would be only necessary to assume that the independent bodies are irregularly shaped; they would then turn toward the electrode their side of the greatest electric density, and this would be a position in which the fluid resistance to approach would be smaller than that offered to the receding.