HYPOTHESIS OF RADIANT MATTER 67 



charge, as they are not influenced by magnetic or electric 

 fields, and are neither refracted nor reflected. Ijwould em- 

 phasize, however, their ability to discharge an electrometer, 

 as well as to influence the photographic plate. Their peculiar- 

 ities have been recently ascribed to the fact that they repre- 

 sented aperiodic impulses given to the luminiferous ether 

 which conveys no meaning to my mind, excepting that they 

 can not be explained by the undulatory theory. The velocity 

 of the canal rays has been determined, and the mass of their 

 hypothetical particles measured by the amount of their de- 

 flection in magnetic fields of varying strength; both values 

 approximate those found for the ordinary chemical atoms 

 or molecules; in the case of the negative cathode rays, how- 

 ever, the velocities and mass correspond to those assumed 

 for the electrons. I confess to a serious difficulty in harmon- 

 izing the notion of a corpuscular structure of the atoms with 

 the explanation given by the same school for the need of 

 high vacua for the production of cathode rays. It is said 

 that the electrons must have a considerable free path in order 

 that they may travel with undiminished velocity toward the 

 anode: but if the atoms, instead of being compact elastic 

 bodies, be mere nebulae of electrons, the relation of whose 

 sizes and interstices is comparable to that of the molecules 

 in a normal gas, it follows that a free electron, hurled vehe- 

 mently forward from the cathode, could pass quite through 

 a number of atoms without collision with any of their con- 

 stituent corpuscles; the free path of the electron is so enor- 

 mous, on this hypothesis, that the order of its magnitude 

 could not be materially affected by the degree of rarefaction 

 of the gas customary in the Crookes tube. 



We must recollect, however, that the hypothesis, first 

 elaborated by Larmor, that the electrons are the primordial 

 constituents of the atoms, does not, like that of Prout, 



