"Now whatever we may think about the ether it would seem that if there is any such thing filling all "empty" space we might use it for measuring the motion of the earth through it as we did the air current in the car. If the earth is really revolving around the sun the ether must be whizzing through its pores at the rate of about nineteen miles a second. But wait—there is the possibility that the earth carries along with it in its flight through space a sort of atmosphere of ether as it does of air. We must first get rid of this possibility by a preliminary experiment to see if a swiftly moving mass of matter does catch up and carry along with it a little of the ether. This would cause a sort of an eddy or disturbance in the ether in the neighborhood of the moving mass as a boat disturbs the water. For instance a ray of light passing close to a rapidly revolving wheel would be a little deflected and show a distorted image. Sir Oliver Lodge tried this experiment and got negative results. That is, moving matter does not disturb or carry with it the ether. Consequently, it would seem, we are left to the only other logical alternative, that the ether drifts through matter and we should expect to detect this drift by measuring the speed of light in the direction of the earth's motion."