As an illustration of what occurs between polarizer and analyzer, look again at this rope (Fig. 53) fastened to the ceiling. I move the bottom end sharply from east to west, and you see that every part of the rope moves from east to west. Can you imagine a rope such that when the bottom end was moved from east to west, a point some yards up moved from east-north-east to west-sou'-west, that a higher point moved from north-east to south-west, and so on, the direction gradually changing for higher and higher points? Some of you, knowing what I have done, may be able to imagine it. We should have what we want if this rope were a chain of gyrostats such as you see figured in the diagram; gyrostats all spinning in the same way looked at from below, with frictionless hinges between them. Here is such a chain (Fig. 56), one of many that I have tried to use in this way for several years. But although I have often believed that I saw the phenomenon occur in {126} such a chain, I must now confess to repeated failures. The difficulties I have met with are almost altogether mechanical ones. You see that by touching all the gyrostats in succession with this rapidly revolving disc driven by the little electromotor, I can get them all to spin at the same time; but you will notice that what with bad mechanism and bad calculation on my part, and want of skill, the phenomenon is completely masked by wild movements of the gyrostats, the causes of which are better known than capable of rectification. The principle of the action is very visible in this gyrostat suspended as the bob of a pendulum (Fig. 57). You may imagine this to represent a particle of the {127} substance which transmits light in the magnetic field, and you see by the trickling thin stream of sand which falls from it on the paper that it is continually changing the plane of polarization. But I am happy to say that I can show you to-night a really successful illustration of Thomson's principle; it is the very first time that this most suggestive experiment has been shown to an audience. I have a number of double gyrostats (Fig. 58) placed on the same line, joined end to end by short pieces of elastic. Each instrument is supported at its centre of gravity, and it can rotate both in horizontal and in vertical planes. [Illustration: FIG. 58.]