In Fig. 2 let D represent a source of heat (a vessel of boiling water for instance) and E a sensitive thermometer receiving and measuring the radiant heat. Now, if for instance a plate of vulcanite is interposed, it cuts off and absorbs a part of the radiant heat emitted by D, and thus a fall is produced in the thermometer reading. But the vulcanite, soon becoming heated by the radiant heat cut off and absorbed by itself, radiates that heat and causes the thermometer reading to return to about its original amount. The false impression is thus produced that the original radiated heat was unaffected by the vulcanite plate; instead of which, as a matter of fact, the vulcanite plate had cut off the radiant heat, becoming heated itself by so doing, and was consequently then the radiating body affecting the thermometer. The effect is similar in the case of induction between the two spirals. Spiral A induces and spiral B receives the induced effect. The metal plate being then interposed, cuts off and absorbs either all or part of the inductive radiant energy emitted by A. The inductive radiant energy thus cut off, however, is not lost, but is converted into electrical energy in the metal plate, thereby causing it to become, as in the case of the vulcanite in the heat experiment, a source of radiation which compensates as far as spiral B is concerned for the original inductive radiant energy cut off. The only material difference noticeable in the two experiments is that in the case of heat the time that elapses between the momentary fall in the thermometer reading (due to the interception by the vulcanite plate of the radiant beat) and the subsequent rise (due to the interposing plate, itself radiating that heat) is long enough to render the effect clearly manifest; whereas in the case of induction the time that elapses is so exceedingly short that, unless special precautions are taken, the radiant energy emitted by the metal plate is liable to be mistaken for the primary energy emitted by the inducing spiral. The current induced in the receiving spiral by the inducing one is practically instantaneous; but on the interposition of a metal plate the induced current which, as before described, is set up by the plate itself has a perceptible duration depending upon the nature and mass of metal thus interposed. Copper and zinc produce in this manner an induced current of greater length than metals of lower conductivity, with the exception of iron, which gives an induced current of extremely short duration. It will therefore be seen that in endeavoring to ascertain what I term the specific inductive resistance of different metals by the means described, notice must be taken of and allowance made for two points. First, that the metal plate not only cuts off, but itself radiates; and secondly, that the duration of the induced currents radiated by the plates varies with each different metal under experiment.