HOSTETTER AND SOSMAN: MERCURY STILL 11 



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Summary. Ishino's experiments, showing that the scatter- 

 ing of hard 7-rays by different materials is strictly proportional 

 to the number of electrons and is not proportional to the masses, 

 proves that the electrons are responsible for practically all of the 

 scattering, and that for these wave-lengths they act independ- 

 entl}^ of each other. According to the classical electrodynamical 

 theory, this means that if the electrons are sensibly point charges 

 of electricity, the absorption coefficient due to scattering for these 

 rays must be given by equation (1). Since this equation does 

 not hold for these wave-lengths, we cannot consider the electron 

 to be a point charge. In order to account for the small absorp- 

 tion coefficient of 7-rays the electron must have an effective radius 

 of about 2.3 X 10"^° cm. In order to explain the fact that the 

 emergent scattered radiation is more intense than the incident 

 radiation, it is necessary to assume further that the different 

 parts of the charge of the electron can possess certain motions inde- 

 pendently of each other. It appears that these phenomena, together 

 with the electromagnetic mass of the electron, can be quanti- 

 tatively explained on the hypothesis that the electron consists 

 of a ring of electricity subject to rotation about any axis and of 

 radius about 2.3 X 10"^° cm. This hypothesis is confirmed by 

 the fact that it explains satisfactorily Forman's effect of mag- 

 netization of iron upon its absorption coefficient, for which 

 there is no other apparent explanation. 



CHEMISTRY. — A silica-glass mercury still. J. C. Hostetter 

 and R. B. Sosman, Geophysical Laboratory. 



Although numerous electrically heated mercury stills have 

 been described and are doubtless being used with satisfaction, 

 nevertheless there is one undesirable feature that is common 

 to all vacuum mercury stills and that is avoided in the one about 

 to be described: namely, that a still made of ordinary glass 

 or even of combustion glass will, when slightly overheated, col- 

 lapse under the pressure of the atmosphere.' 



1 The form of failure of such a tube is of some interest in itself. One of our 

 ordinary glass stills that collapsed one night when the voltage on the power line 

 became too high yielded symmetrically around its vertical axis, instead of flatten- 

 ing out, producing a figure with three cusps separated by angles of 120 degrees. 



