Towards the close of the century there was some revival of Spiritualism, and there were fresh attempts to describe the beautiful world beyond the grave. Mediums were then in the "houses of flowers" stage. It sounded very pretty, but you must not take it literally. With the advance of the new century, mediums recovered all their confidence. It was at the beginning of the present century that physicists began to discover that matter was composed of electrons, and "ether" was the most discussed subject in the whole scientific press. Here was a grand opportunity. A world of ether would not be so crudely Materialistic as the earlier post-mortem world of the mediums. Yet it might be moulded by the imagination into a more or less material shape. It must be frankly admitted that the "pure spirit" idea is not attractive. Those who yearn to meet again the people they had known and loved are a little chilled at the prospect of finding only what seems to be an abstraction, a mere mathematical point, a thing paler and less tangible than a streak of mist. Ether was therefore gladly seized as a good compromise. Ghost-land was in the ether of space. There had been, it is true, earlier references in Spiritualist revelations to "ether bodies," but it is chiefly since the series of discoveries in science to which radium led that the modern Spiritualist idea has been evolved. As usual, the spiritual revelations follow in the rear of advancing science. But in this case the automatic writers had a great advantage. They need only follow the lead of Sir Oliver Lodge, who, however curious his ideas of physiology may be, is certainly an authority on ether. He began by hinting mysteriously that he saw "a spiritual significance" in ether. Following up that clue, the automatic writers have worked so industriously that we now know the "Summerland" more thoroughly than we know Central Africa or Thibet.