NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



ing results. The exquisite glow which appears in 

 the Crookes tubes when a current of electricity is 

 passed through them seems to be due to minute 

 particles shot by repulsion from one of the poles. 

 These particles are heated to incandescence, and 

 travel with a third of the velocity of light fifty 

 thousand miles per second. Professor Thomson 

 and his co-workers have found a way to measure 

 their mass, and the charge of electricity they bear. 

 The charge is the same as that of the particles 

 which ferry electricity through a liquid. But their 

 mass is but a thousandth part of that of the light- 

 est atom known. What is more striking than 

 all is that they seem all alike. No matter what 

 may be their source, they have the same mass, the 

 same charge, act exactly the same. The cathode 

 the pole from which they spring may be of gold 

 or lead, of copper or silver; it makes no difference. 

 Moreover, it seems as if these cathode particles, as 

 they are called, are streaming from everywhere 

 from the sun, from the tips of the leaves of a tree. 

 Space appears to be swarming with them. It 

 seems as if the quest of primal matter was at- 

 tained. These particles are primal matter. 



They are certainly the smallest things known. 

 It is conceivable that they are the ultimate units 

 from which the whole universe is made. As the 

 chemical elements, by their combination, form the 



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