6y6 



|;IKKI I. ANIL 



>. Mil \OKWI.OIAN ATKOKA POLARIS I- X I'Kl >l I lo\, I 902 1903. 



It required considerable labour to put everything into order again, but, after renewed pumpin" it 

 \vas found tliat a little nil trickled out on to the lloor of the box, thus showing that it had not all hi , 

 removed. 



After lining the ]>ox with hydrogen and emptying it several times, the point-discharges from th, 

 glol>e-cathde were iniieh more marked than helore, being peculiarly intense, even without being coupled 

 to any external capacitv. The vacuum-box too, now happened to he so air-tight, that alter lettin ' it stand 

 untouched tor a week, it was impossible to detect the entrance ol anv foreign gas. 



The most striking leature, ho\\ r evcr, of these point-discharges -which, as I have shown, have a 

 preference tor a hydrogen atmosphere was that the frequently-mentioned branches radiatin rr from tin- 

 point of light were so intense that thev could easily be photographed by the aid of a cinematographic 

 lens. It is evident that vapours from the vaseline-oil or decomposition gases here play a part. 



\Ylien the cathode-globe was not magnetised, the light-tracery that appeared round the puint-dischariji- 

 resembled a many-armed starfish (fig. 261 a). On rare occasions it happened that the arms of light could 



l-'i,-. 261. 



be followed right round the globe, where they met at a point diametrically opposite to the point of discharge. 



These meeting-points of the arms of light might also have the appearance of a faint point of discharge. 

 This calls to mind TKOUVKI.OT'S drawing, which is reproduced in fig. 251. 



When the cathode-globe is magnetised with the north pole uppermost, the points of discharge move 

 near to the magnetic equator. The arms of light about these points still exist, but they have received 

 a twi-t so that the vortices created have a counter-clockwise motion on the upper hemisphere (fig. 261 l>). 

 and clockwise on the lower (fig. 261 c|. With a magnetised globe also, the light from a point of discharge 

 seemed to radiate and as it were meet in a diametrically opposite point on the globe; the light runs at 

 anv rate- right round the equatorial regions every time a point-discharge occurs. It is understood from 

 the direction of the twist, that the arms of light radiating from the points of discharge, and sometimes 

 encompassing the globe, are a iii'^ul'i'i' radiation and thus of the same kind as that which issues almost 

 perpendicularly from the globe (see fig. 219). 



If, therefore, we take for granted that the sun and the earth are oppositely magnetised, as, for other 

 reasons, I have previously assumed (C. R., |an. 24, 1910), then, if the analogies are correct, negate' 

 electric radiation will give rise to the vortices round sun-spots, studied by MALI-: and KI.I.KKMAN. 



