He smiled, but made no reply. Still the strange process continued. The
pink vapor became so dense that the lump of gold was no longer
visible, although the eye of violet light glared piercingly through
the colored fog. Every second the deposit of metal, shining like a
mirror, increased, until suddenly there came a curious whistling
sound. Hall, who had been adjusting the mirror, jerked away his hand
and gave it a flip, as if hot water had spattered it, and then the
light in the tube quickly died away, the vapor escaped, filling the
room with a peculiar stimulating odor, and I perceived that the end of
the glass tube had been melted through, and the molten gold was slowly
dripping from it.
"I carried it a little too far," said Hall, ruefully rubbing the back
of his hand, "and when the glass gave way under the atomic bombardment
a few atoms of gold visited my bones. But there is no harm done. You
observed that the instant the air reached the kathode, as I for
convenience call the electrified mass of gold, the action ceased."
"But your anode, to continue your simile," I said, "is constantly
exposed to the air.
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