our friend should have continued to work on & achieve, in spite of his surroundings at that time. If one could also realise, in a country situated as India is, the sacrifices that a free people, like the Americans or English, the French or the Germans wa. be willing to make in order to obtain such a worker as Dr. Bose —of their own blood— one was stand amazed, as I did, at the spectacle of a great scientific man working alone as he was. I had come, of course, from Europe, where Prof. Bose's name was well known as the discoverer of the Etheric Waves that penetrate minerals. His work was belated in reaching Europe. It was announced along with the Röntgen rays, & obviously went deeper— since that form of light was deterred by bone & metal, while his penetrated these substances. Already, early in the year 1895, I believe, he had demonstrated the existence of these invisible rays at the Town Hall, Calcutta— and it was not till two years after he had thus made the essential discovery— as some of the Italian scientific papers were the first to point out, - that Marconi began to work out & apply it on the large scale. Of course you understand that men of the inventor & discoverer type– men like Marconi, Tesla, Mascine, & so on, rank in the world of science far below the investigator, the man of Sannyasin mind like Dr. Bose, who pursues knowledge for its own sake. Even Prof. ... jeopardises his great reputation, & certainly minimises his historic importance by taking patents & becoming involved > 8br
