314 B. Rosing on the Participation of Matter 



theory. We think that it is indispensable to complete the 

 experiments above described in order to elucidate the various 

 questions which present themselves, and we limit ourselves to 

 a general conclusion that the phenomena observed should be 

 attributed to electric fluxes proceeding from the Hittorf s tube 

 and the objects in its neighbourhood, together with a dielec- 

 tric polarization ; in this sense the similarity of the electric 

 fields of a Hittorf's tube and of an electrified conductor must 

 be admitted ; we must therefore take it into account in the 

 study of the electric properties of Rontgen's rays. 



April 1896. 



XXXIV. On the Possibility of explaining the Phenomena of 

 Magnetism by the Hypothesis of Participation of Matter in 

 the Motion of the Magnetic Field. By B. Rosing, Fellow 

 of the Russian Physico-chemical Society*. 



ALL theories of magnetism, whatever their physical foun- 

 dations, are founded from the point of view of dynamics 

 on the supposition of the existence of two principal types of 

 physical coordinates ; the one fixing the intensity and the 

 distribution ■ of magnetic induction, the other defining the 

 state of the magnetized matter. But the coordinates, as is 

 known, can be in general either of positional or of kinosthenic 

 character f; i. e. they can occur in the expression for the 

 energy of a system either explicitly or only through their 

 differential coefficients. Therefore we may imagine three 

 combinations of our magnetic coordinates, and consequently 

 divide all possible hypotheses on magnetism into three cate- 

 gories. The first category, when both types of coordinates 

 are positional ; Weber's hypothesis, for instance, of Molecular 

 Magnets belongs to it. The other, when the one type is 

 positional and the other kinosthenic ; such is Ampere's hy- 

 pothesis of Molecular Electric Currents in Maxwell's version J: 

 the latter takes the energy of the electric currents to be kinetic. 

 A third combination is still possible — when both types of 

 coordinates belong to the kinosthenic type, i. e. when it is 

 supposed that matter when magnetized is put into the same 

 motion as the surrounding magnetic field. We shall take this 

 third assumption. — Have we the right to consider the magne- 



* Communicated by the Author. 



t See J. J. Thomson's 'Applications of Dynamics to Physics and 

 Chemistry/ p. 10. 



X See Maxwell's 'Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism,' 1892. 

 vol. ii. chap. xxii. 



