luminous flame, he will be surprised at the brilliance of its incandescence when it has become heated.  The simple experiment indicates the possibilities of light-production in this direction.  Naturally, metals of high melting-point such as platinum were tried and a network of platinum wire, in reality a platinum mantle, came into practical use in about 1880.  The town of Nantes was lighted by gas-burners using these platinum-gauze mantles, but the mantles were unsuccessful owing to their rapid deterioration.  This line of experimentation finally bore fruit of immense value for from it the gas-mantle evolved.

A group of so-called “rare-earths,” among which are zirconia, thoria, ceria, erbia, and yttria (these are oxides of zirconium, etc.) possess a number of interesting chemical properties some of which have been utilized to advantage in the development of modern artificial light.  They are white or yellowish-white oxides of a highly refractory character found in certain rare minerals.  Most of them are very brilliant when heated to a high temperature.  This latter feature is easily explained if the nature of light and the radiating properties of substances are considered.  Suppose pieces of different substances, for example, glass and lime, are heated in a Bunsen flame to the same temperature which is sufficiently great to cause both of them to glow.  Notwithstanding the identical conditions of heating, the glass will be only faintly luminous, while the piece of lime will glow brilliantly.  The former is a poor radiator; furthermore, the lime radiates a relatively greater percentage of its total energy in the form of luminous energy.

The latter point will become clearer if the reader will refresh his memory regarding the nature of light.  Any luminous source such as the sun, a candle flame, or an incandescent lamp is sending forth electromagnetic waves not unlike those used in wireless telegraphy excepting that they are of much shorter wave-length.  The eye is capable of recording some of these waves as light just as a receiving station is tuned to record a range of wave-lengths of electromagnetic energy.  The electromagnetic waves sent forth by a light-source like the sun are not all visible, that is, all of them do not arouse a sensation of light.  Those that do comprise the visible spectrum and the different wave-lengths of visible radiant energy manifest themselves by arousing the sensations of the various spectral colors.  The radiant energy of shortest wave-length perceptible by the visual apparatus excites the sensation of violet and the longest ones the sensation of deep red.  Between these two extremes of the visible spectrum, the chief spectral colors are blue, green, yellow, orange, and red in the order of increasing wave-lengths.  Electromagnetic energy radiated by a light-source in waves of too great wave-length to be perceived by the eye as light is termed as a class “infra-red radiant energy.”  Those too short to be perceived as light are termed as a class “ultraviolet radiant energy.”  A solid body at a high temperature emits electro-magnetic energy of all wave-lengths, from the shortest ultra-violet to the longest infra-red.