374 UNSUSPECTED RADIATIONS. 



of force. Bosiclos. n woak clet'trostatic' force has upon tlicni the same 

 effect, showing that they are eh^ctriiied negatively. Perrin ^ and others 

 who followed him have proved that these rays carry negative elec- 

 tricity with them. If they are taken out of the vacumn tube in which 

 they originated to another tube and are made there to fall upon an 

 electroscope they discharge it. Negative electricity can not be se])a- 

 rated from them: it follows with them when they are deflected by a 

 magnet; it is their property — -not something added to them. 



MoreoviM'. it was already noticed l)y Crookes. and contirmed since by 

 Professoi- Thomson, that most of their proi)erties do not depend upon 

 the nature of the gas — air. oxygen, hydrogen, etc. — with which the 

 tube was tilled iirst. and of which a minute (juantity always remains in 

 the tube. They appear as a property of matter altogether rather than 

 a property of thi> oi- that gas. And when attempts were lately made 

 to measurt' tlie sizes of the particles which are carried in the kathode 

 rays, it was found that they are extremely ndmite — nuich smaller than 

 the probable size of atoms — while the charges of electricit}^ which they 

 carry witli them are relatively great." 



All these facts have brought Prof. J. ,]. Thomson to the conclusion 

 that the matter which is carried in the cathode rays is not ordinary 

 matter, such as we know it in our everyday chemical experienc(\ l)ut 

 matter in a state of a high dissociation. AVe know that the moletulcs 

 of all bodies in nature consist of atoms; but even these atoms, small 

 though they imist ))e. are giants in comparison witii the particles trans- 

 ported in the kathode streams. Consequently, we must think that the 

 atoms themselves are dissociated in the intensive electric field. They 

 divide into what we mav call the primary atoms of some primai-y mat- 

 ter out of which the atoms of all chemical elements must be built up, 

 and these primary atoms are carriers of electricity. ' Of course, not 

 ever}' molecule need be dissociated, and some experiments show that 

 the number of dissociated molecules is really verN' small in comparison 

 with their total number. If one out of each three milliards of mole- 

 cules is in a state of dissociation, this will do to account for the facts 

 and the measurements which have been made, although many more 

 molecules ma}' have been dissociated in the kathode stream onh^ to be 

 reconstructed after having exchanged atoms with their neighbors. 



It must be said in favor of this hypothesis that dissociation under the 

 action of violent electrical vibrations — i. e., the breaking up of mole- 

 cules into 'fO)is^ or elementarv atoms carrying electricity with them — is 

 familiar to physicists. Besides, if we can not yet specify what we 



1 Annalen der Physik, 1898, Vol. LXVI, p. 1. 



^ J. J. Thomson, Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XLVI, p. 528. 



^Professor Thomson names them "corpuscles," ])nt this is hardly an appropriate 

 name for such minute subdivisions of the atoms. To the ])iologist it conveys an idea 

 of organization; and in physics it was used formerly as a sul)stitnte for "molecules." 



