Goldsboro weekly argus. [volume] (Goldsboro, N.C.) 1885-1909, 1895-01-31
A NOTABLE DISCOVERY IN ELEC-
TRICKY.


The year 1894 was not remark
able for epoch-making discover
les in science, but was busily
occupied in the prosecution of
familiar lines of research, with
useful applications of existing
knowledge as the chief result.
Nevertheless, something has
been done to widen the intellec-
tual vision and stimulate thought
in,new directions. Perhaps the
most striking original wo-k of
the past year was Mr.. Philip
Lenard's application in Eng
land of. Hertz's discovery that
metallic films are transparent to
the dark rays issuing from the
negative pole in the case of
electric discharge in a high
vacuum. Mr.. Lenard closed one
end of a vacuum tube with an
aluminium film thick enough to
resist atmospheric pressure and
studied the rays after passage
through the metal. The air
outside vas seen to glow family.
All the ordinary phosphorescent
effects produced by Crookes in a
vacuum were thus readily pro-
ducep in air. These rays from
the negative pole, though not
affecting the eye and producing
no sensation in the skin, are yet
photographically active, and to
the tongue and nostrils have the
taste and smell of ozone.
Unlike the rays of ordinary
light they cannot pass through
quartz plates, but do pass'thorugh
metal films, which r Opaque to
light. In respect to air or gas
their behavior is equally novel.
Ordinary light passes through
a gas as if it were a homo
geneous medium and becomes
dispersed or makes its path visi-
BILE only in case there are solid
particles, such as dust, floating
in the gas. But these rays from
the negative pole, or cathode
rays" affect the gas molecules
as if they were solid particles
floating in a continuous medium.
In other words, all gases, how
ever transparent to ordinary
light, are turbid to cathode rays,
and the degree of turbidity
depends wholly upon the density
Or mass of the gass molecules
present, irrespective of their
chemical character. OXYGEN, for
example, under d reduced pres
ure that brings it to the density
of hydrogen, is as transparent as
hydrogen. while hydrogen, if
brought by pressure to the den
sity of oxygen, becomes as
turbid as oxygen.
The cathode rays traverse a
perfect vacuum with facility.
After passing through the alum
inium screen their radiation in
air stops at a distance of eight
tenths of an inch, but in hydro
gen it extends to four inches and
in a vacuum to ffty-two inches.
While the rarest gas disperses
the cathode ray into a blur, as a
fog disperses an ordinary, rays its
movement in a vacuum is in a
straight line. But a magnet
brought near defects it.
The question of the nature of
matter is raised by some of Mr..
Lenard's experiments, the ex-
perimenter being of opinion that
the fact that every gas m~ulecule
acts as a solid obstacle to the
passage of the cathode rays is a
proof that the molecule is only
function of the ether ITSELF
virtually that there is no matter,
unless the name can be given to
ether, a substance that eludes all
tests. Prof. j. J. Thompson, on
the other hand, finding that the
rate of propagation of these
cat
hode rays is much less than that
of ordinary light, but about 100
times as great as that of the
hydrogen molecule, solves the
difficulty by assuming that cleo
trified gaseous molecules, rather
than the ether, are the seat of
this mysterious force.
A practical Civilization of the
cathode rays has been made in
the Ebert luminescent lamp. The
inventor says that a serviceable
light can be obtained by means
of his lamp with an expen-
diture of one-two-thousandth
part of the energy consumed in
the acetate unlit lamp. Just