various colors, from violet to red, induced by radiant energy of increasing wave-length.  The infra-red rays are sometimes called heat-rays, but all radiant energy may be converted into heat.  Various substances transmit and absorb these rays in general quite differently from the visible rays.  Water is opaque to most of the infra-red rays.  Next there is a region of wave-lengths or frequencies for which no radiant energy has been found.  The so-called electric waves vary in wave-length over a great range and they include those employed in wireless telegraphy.  All these radiations are of the same general character, consisting of electromagnetic energy, but differing in wave-length or frequency of vibration and also in their effects.  In effect they may overlap in many cases and the whole is a chaos if the physical details of quantity and wave-length are not specified in experimental work.

[Illustration:  In art work

In a haberdashery

JUDGING COLOR UNDER ARTIFICIAL DAYLIGHT]

[Illustration:  In an underground tunnel

In an art gallery

ARTIFICIAL DAYLIGHT]

It has been conclusively shown that radiant energy kills bacteria.  The early experiments were made with sunlight and the destruction of micro-organisms is generally attributed to the so-called chemical rays, namely, the blue, violet, and ultra-violet rays.  It appears in general that the middle ultra-violet rays are the most powerful destroyers.  It is certainly established that sunlight sterilizes water, for example, and the quartz mercury-lamp is in daily use for this purpose on a practicable scale.  However, there still appears to be a difference of opinion as to the destructive effect of radiant energy upon bacteria in living tissue.  It has been shown that the middle ultra-violet rays destroy animal tissue and, for example, cause eye-cataracts.  It appears possible from some experiments that ultra-violet rays destroy bacteria in water and on culture plates more effectively in the absence of visible rays than when these attend the ultra-violet rays as in the case of sunlight.  This is one of the reasons for the use of blue glass in light-therapy, which isolates the blue, violet, and near ultra-violet rays from the other visible rays.  If the infra-red rays are not desired they can be readily eliminated by the use of a water-cell.

There is a vast amount of testimony which proves the bactericidal action of light.  Bacteria on the surface of the body are destroyed by ultra-violet rays.  Typhus and tubercle bacilli are destroyed equally well by the direct rays from the sun and from the electric arcs.  Cultures of diphtheria develop in diffused daylight but are destroyed by direct sunlight.  Lower organisms in water are readily killed by the radiation from any light-source emitting ultra-violet rays comparable with those in direct sunlight.  From the great amount of data available it appears reasonable to conclude that radiant energy is a powerful bactericidal agency but that the action is due chiefly to ultra-violet rays.  It appears also that no bacteria can resist these rays if they are intense enough and are permitted to play upon the bacteria long enough.  The destruction of these organisms appears to be a phenomenon of oxidation, for the presence of oxygen appears to be necessary.