It is, perhaps, to the excellence
of this tube that Dr. Robb owes part of his success. At any rate, in
the foot picture the bones are outlined through shoe and stocking,
while every nail in the sole of the shoe shows plainly, although the
rays came from above, striking the top of the foot first, the sole
resting upon the plate-holder. In other of Dr. Robb's pictures equally
fine results were obtained; notably in one of a fish, reproduced
herewith, and showing the bony structure of the body; one of a razor,
where the lighter shadow proves that the hollow ground portion is
almost as thin as the edge; and one of a man's hand, taken for use
in a lawsuit, to prove that the bones of the thumb, which had been
crushed and broken in an accident, had been improperly set by the
attending physician.
[Illustration: THOMAS A. EDISON EXPERIMENTING WITH THE ROeNTGEN RAYS.]
Dr. Robb has made a series of novel and important experiments with
tubes from which the air has been exhausted in varying degrees, and
has concluded from these that it is impossible to produce the Roentgen
phenomena unless there is present in the tube an almost perfect
vacuum. Through a tube half exhausted, on connecting it with an
induction coil, he obtained merely the ordinary series of sparks; in a
tube three-quarters exhausted, he obtained a reddish glow from end to
end, a torpedo-shaped stream of fire; through a tube exhausted to
a fairly high degree--what the electric companies would call "not
bad"--he obtained a beautiful steaked effect of bluish striae in
transverse layers.
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