CH.VI.] POSITIVE CARRIERS 67 



electrons discharged from Radium, their velocity is 

 so great that this loading effect is imperceptible. 



Nothing larger than the ordinary electrolytic value 

 for the e/m ratio is ever given by the positive carriers. 

 These are not so easy to observe, but WIEN* has 

 examined them by detecting and measuring the 

 slight magnetic deflexion exhibited by certain 

 rays behind a perforated cathode in a vacuum tube, 

 which Goldstein discovered and called Kanal-strahlen, 

 and which Wien and Ewers proved were carriers of 

 positive electricity. Wien has shown that they move 

 fairly quickly that is to say about 360 kilometres 

 per second in spite of the fact that in hydrogen their 

 ratio e/m is of the order 10 4 , that is to say the 

 proper value for a hydrogen atom or ion. With 

 other substances the ratio has been found to vary 

 with the substance and approximately to equal the 

 electrolytic value, for these positively charged 

 atoms. J. J. Thomson has likewise made measure- 

 ments on the positive carriers, by means of the 

 discharge from incandescent filaments and other 

 positively charged hot bodies, and has confirmed 

 Wien's results obtaining an electrolytic value for 

 their electrochemical equivalent. 



Thus it is forcibly suggested that whereas the 

 positive carriers of electricity are always ions, con- 

 sisting of a unit + charge associated with an atom, 

 the negative carriers are sometimes dissociated from 

 the main bulk of the atom, as if they were only 

 fractions or fragments or constituents or appendages 

 of an atom. These, detached and flying loose, are 

 able to attain to prodigious speed. For any acceler- 

 ation to which they are subjected is a thousand-fold 



*Wied. Ann. Ixv. p. 440. See also Ewers in Wied. Ann. Ixfx. 

 p. 187. 



