A NEW method of chemical analysis has been discovered by Sir J. J. Thomson. It makes use of the Crookes vacuum tube, which, as is well known, consists of a glass vessel containing a residuum of air or other gas in a highly rarefied state. A platinum wire is sealed into each end of the tube, each wire connected with an electrode within the tube. A high-potential electric current is transmitted across the rarefied gas, being carried by the particles, which, owing to the rarefaction, have a greater freedom of movement. When these charged particles strike the walls of the tube or an obstacle placed in their path they produce beautiful luminous effects. Professor Thomson, in his new method of analysis, pierces the negative electrode with a tube of very fine bore, and it is found that the charged particles of gas pass through this tube into the space behind, where they will produce luminosity on a screen in their path. Now, as is known, these particles can be deflected from their straight path and caused to take curved paths by certain electric and magnetic methods. But the amount of deflection so produced varies according to the mass and velocity of the particle. Professor Thompson has so arranged the experiment that the amount of deflection produced in the various particles present is indicated by the spot at which they strike the screen. If they proceeded in a straight path, they would strike the screen in the center; the more they are deflected, the further from the center is the point at which they strike. This affords a means of analysing the composition of the gases present; but it is also necessary to take into account the fact that the amount of deflection depends not only on the mass and velocity of the particles but upon the amount of electric charge they are carrying. But this merely multiplies or divides the results by integral quantities. It was found by these experiments that no matter what gas was being examined, hydrogen was always present, and also carbon, nitrogen, and mercury; mercury would be likely to be present in the air of a laboratory. In examining marsh gas (CH_{4}), besides curves corresponding to marsh gas, carbon, and hydrogen, there were found other curves which by calculation would correspond to CH, CH_{2}, and CH_{3}, compounds which are not known to the chemist and which must be momentary transition stages in the decomposition of marsh gas. This method of analysis is rapid, can be performed with minute quantities, and is not hindered by the presence of impurities, for these register themselves without interfering with the other elements. Two prophecies by H. P. Blavatsky in _The Secret Doctrine_ were that chemistry and biology were the twin magicians of the coming time, and that it would soon be admitted by men of science that the Occult teaching is true--that every cell, atom, and speck in the universe is alive.