Odd Habits of X-Rays

Roentgen’s New Light Develops Eccentricities and Puzzles Investigators.

PRODUCED WITHOUT ELECTRODES.

It Defies Mirrors, Is Not Luminous, and Yet It Works Photographic Wonders.

MORE EXPERIMENTERS IN THE FIELD.

Europe Called Upon to Hurry Shipments of Crooke’s Tubes — Surgeons Deeply Interested.

The exploiters of the X rays discovered by Prof. Roentgen, of Germany, have been joined by Prof. R. Ogden Doremus, of the City College, and Prof. Herring, of the University of the City of New York. They are making experiments with the new and mysterious form of light.

Prof. Doremus is a past master in the photographic art, and had in his laboratory, when the Roentgen fever first took effect on this side of the water, a good stock of Crooke’s tubes. He has given several lectures before his classes on the strange method of making photographs or, rather, shadowgraphs, but has not as yet sought to produce the pictures on sensitive plates.

Prof. Herring is getting apparatus ready and expects to soon make pictures for the students of the interior of objects opaque to the human eye.

Nikola Tesla has gone into mechanical science and is not bothering his head about Roentgen’s rays, but nearly every other physicist in New York or vicinity is engaged either directly or indirectly in experiments. As a consequence, there is an unprecedented demand for Crooke’s tubes, and the principal house in New York dealing in scientific chemical apparatus has cabled for a big consignment of the articles. They are now on the ocean and are anxiously awaited. The virtue of a Crooke’s tube is that the air is more nearly exhausted from it than from any other tube.

Medical Men Interested.

The medical men are also deeply interested in the discovery, because of the possibilities in the field of surgery. They are not yet making experiments, preferring to wait until the investigators now at work have brought the matter into more definite shape. It is now in very crude form, the most learned men acknowledging that they are only novices — explorers in a practically unknown region.

Dr. Huntington, of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in West Fifty-ninth street, is having his staff gather data on the subject from local and foreign sources, and will no doubt be first to take it up from the surgeon’s point of view. It has been suggested that the light may be used to diagnose a supposed case of appendicitis by photographing the flesh and appendix, and securing a shadow or picture of the foreign substance causing the trouble.

The possibilities for locating a bullet in the body are also good, and when the objection is raised that a bullet in the brain could not be pictured, because the skull bones, through which the new light cannot penetrate, would obstruct, the answer is made that the light may be thrown through the eye, and the imprint secured at the wound. The truth is, however, it has not yet appeared that the X ray will be of any practical use whatever, and, if not, science will, nevertheless, be a great gainer.

New Way of Producing the Light.

Prof. Pupin, of Columbia University, made some experiments yesterday, but did not attempt anything new in the way of pictures. He seemingly established the peculiar fact that the light could be produced by using tubes having no electrodes, which would argue that the rays are not necessarily produced by the anode or cathode electrode employed in the Crooke’s tubes. He made a very good picture of some trinkets, using a simple, sealed, glass tube, and securing the desired fluorescence by applying the electricity through tin foil. The foil was wrapped once around either end of the table, and the wires conveying the current were wrapped about the foil. The same result was secured as if the electricity had been introduced within the tube by wires attached to electrodes inside, as in all former experiments. This was a puzzler for the investigators.

Concerning this new feature, insertion, Edison told a reporter for The World a few days ago that he was not certain that he could not produce the X rays, so called, from an ordinary radiance or light. He meant to investigate in that direction, he said.

Prof. Pupin wants to make an experiment of real value. He cannot do this until he has pumped the air from a big Crooke’s tube just finished, and that will require a day or two of work on the part of several men and a couple of the queer machines scientists call air pumps.

Plate as Big as a Man.

E. & H. T. Anthony & Co., dealers in photographic materials at No. 591 Broadway, say they will do their part in the matter by providing Prof. Pupin with six-foot sensitive plates, so that the entire body system of a living man may be photographed. The question is whether a reasonably large tube will answer, since it would be a most heroic effort to endeavor to produce the necessary vacuum in a tube anywhere approaching the size of a man. It is readily seen that there is much about the discovery that is in the air, at least in so far as investigations have progressed on this side. In fact, pretty much all is yet to be learned.

One of the several peculiarities of the new form of light is that it does not reflect from a looking-glass or from any other polished surface so far as is known. An effort will be made to discover some metal or other substance that will reflect it, so that the rays may be condensed and their power thereby multiplied.

Another difficulty afforded by the light is that it does not illuminate, and that while a tube may be beautifully luminous, there is no sure way of determining just what amount of the mysterious light is being produced, and consequently no certainty as to the exposure necessary to imprint a shadow on the sensitive plate.

Trials Made at Random.

Every trial made is, therefore, executed blindly, the result not being even guessed at until the negative is tried for. So far, the exposures by Prof. Pupin and his pupil, C. T. Rittenhouse, have been from one hour and thirty minutes to three hours. A picture made yesterday after three hours of exposure, although quite distinct, was still found to have been under exposed.

“One thing is certain,” said Prof. Pupin, “the length of exposure depends upon the perfection of the tube as to vacuum. The old tubes, which have taken in air, make the imprint very slowly.”

Thomas A. Edison said yesterday that he regarded the results he had so far obtained as trivial, and that he found it necessary to make new apparatus especially for the purpose of exploiting the X rays.

“I have not yet been able,” said he, “to obtain a satisfactory negative.”