Page:A history of the theories of aether and electricity. Whittacker E.T. (1910).pdf/414

 rarefied gases were investigated by Sir William Crookes. Influenced, doubtless, by the ideas which were developed in connexion with his discovery of the radiometer, Crookes, like Varley, proposed to regard the cathode rays as a molecular torrent: he supposed the molecules of the residual gas, coming into contact with the cathode, to acquire from it a resinous charge, and immediately to fly off normally to the surface, by reason of the mutual repulsion exerted by similarly electrified bodies. Carrying the exhaustion to a higher degree, Crookes was enabled to study a dark space which under such circumstances appears between the cathode and the cathode glow; and to show that at the highest rarefactions this dark space(which has since been generally known by his name) enlarges until the whole tube is occupied by it. Ho suggested that the thickness of the dark space may be a measure of the mean length of free path of the molecules.

"The extra velocity," he wrote, "with which the molecules rebound from the excited negative pole keeps back the more slowly moving molecules which are advancing towards that pole. The conflict occurs at the boundary of the dark space, where the luminous margin bears witness to the energy of the collisions." Thus according to Crookes the dark space is dark and the glow bright because there are collisions in the latter and not in the former. The fluorescence or phosphorescence on the walls of the tube he attributed to the impact of the particles on the glass.

Crookes spoke of the cathode rays as an "ultra-gaseous" or "fourth state" of matter. These expressions have led some later writers to ascribe to him the enunciation or prediction of a hypothesis regarding the nature of the particles projected from the cathode, which arose some years afterwards, and which we shall presently describe; but it is clear from Crookes' memoirs that he conceived the particles of the cathode rays to be ordinary gaseous molecules, carrying electric charges; and by