Text: I accept Prof. Stoney's idea that an apsidal motion might be caused by an interaction between high and low tenuous matter, but such conditions, even of the highest accelerated motion are too far down below the etheric realm to influence it sympathetically, even in the most remote way. The conjecture as regards the motion being a series of harmonic elliptic ones, accompanied by a slow apsidal one, I believe to be correct... The combination of these motions would necessarily produce two circular motions of different amplitudes whose differing periods might correspond to two lines of the spectrum as conjectured, and lead the experimenter, perhaps, into a position corresponding to an ocular illusion. Considering the very complicated spectrum of most of the elements, the multiplicity of lines may possibly be caused by an apsidal motion in the molecule by the interaction between high and low tenuous matter. However, the molecule cannot disturb the ether: such conditions fall far below the etheric subdivision. "I believe the motion to be a series of harmonic elliptic movements accompanied by a slow apsidal movement, the combinations of which will produce two circular motions of different amplitudes whose differing periods might correspond to two lines in the spectrum. I believe, however, each spectrum line consists not of two close lines but of compound triple lines."

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