are comprised within a single octave of vibration, from about 400 to 800 billions in one second. As the frequency of vibration rises still higher, our organs of perception fail us completely; a great gap in our consciousness obliterates the rest. The brief flash of light is succeeded by unbroken darkness.
These great regions of invisible lights are now being slowly and patiently explored. In time the great gaps which now exist will be filled up, and light-gleams, visible and invisible, will be found merging one into the other in unbroken sequence.
Before concluding I take this opportunity of expressing my sincere thanks to the Managers of the Royal Institution for according me the privilege of addressing you this evening. The land from which I come did at one time strive to extend human knowledge, but that was many centuries ago. It is now the privilege of the West to lead in this work. I would fain hope, and I am sure I am echoing your sentiments, that a time may come when the East, too, will take her part in this glorious undertaking; and that at no distant time it shall neither be the West nor the East, but both the East and the West, that will work together, each taking her share in extending the boundaries of knowledge, and bringing out the manifold blessings that follow in its train.
(Friday Evening Discourse, Royal Institution, Jan. 1897.)
