Page:A history of the theories of aether and electricity. Whittacker E.T. (1910).pdf/418

 the conductivity of the hot gases of flames. "It is assumed," he wrote, "that in electrolytes, even before the application of an external electromotive force, there are present atoms or atomic groups—the ions, as they are called—which originate when the molecules dissociate; by these the passage of electricity through the liquid is effected, for they are set in motion by the electric field and carry their charges with them. We shall now extend this hypothesis by assuming that in gases also the property of conductivity is due to the presence of ions. Such ions may be supposed to exist in small numbers in all gases at the ordinary temperature and pressure; and as the temperature rises their numbers will increase."

Ideas similar to this were presented in a general theory of the discharge in rarefied gases, which was devised two years later by Arthur Schuster, of Manchester. Schuster remarked that when hot liquids are maintained at a high potential, the vapours which rise from them are found to be entirely free from electrification, from which he inferred that a molecule striking an electrified surface in its rapid motion cannot carry away any part of the charge, and that one molecule cannot communicate electricity to another in an encounter in which both molecules remain intact. Thus he was led to the conclusion that dissociation of the gaseous molecules is necessary for the passage of electricity through gases.

Schuster advocated the charged particle theory of cathode rays, and by extending and interpreting an experiment of Hittorf's was able to adduce strong evidence in its favour. He placed the positive and negative electrodes so close to each other that at very low pressures the Crookes' dark space extended from the cathode to beyond the anode. In these circumstances it was found that the discharge from the positive electrode always passed to the nearest point of the inner boundary of the Crookes' dark space—Which, of course, was in