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"Oh, no," said he; "I can't let you make pictures of me. I am too busy." Clearly the professor was entirely too modest to gratify the wishes of the curious world. "Now, Professor," said I, "will you tell me the history of the discovery?" "There is no history," he said. "I have been for a long time interested in the problem of the cathode rays from a vacuum tube as studied by Hertz and Lenard.
The diffused glow or cloudy light of the tube now shrank into a single stream, which joined the sparking points inserted through the ends of the tube as with a luminous thread A magnet held near the tube bent the streamer from its course; and there was a dark space or gap in it near the negative point or cathode, from which proceeded invisible rays, having the property of impressing a photographic plate, and of rendering matter in general on which they impinged phosphorescent, and, in course of time, red-hot.
It should be noted that, in general, the changes occurring at the cathode are reductions, while those at the anode are oxidations. For analytical purposes, solutions of nitrates or sulphates of the metals are preferable to those of the chlorides, since liberated chlorine attacks the electrodes.
The Artesian ray, of which these two spoke, was an invention upon which Roland Clewe had been experimenting for a long time, and which was and had been the object of his labors and studies while in Europe. In the first decade of the century it had been generally supposed that the X ray, or cathode ray, had been developed and applied to the utmost extent of its capability.
In order to do this it was necessary to separate the ordinary electric sparks from the invisible cathode rays which, as Dr. Morton believed, accompanied them.
The observer looks through the screen, or into it, and sees with the unaided eye the invisible interior parts of the object examined, held between the screen and the cathode light.
According to Sir William Crookes, the first of these are free electrons, or matter in an ultra-gaseous state, as shown in the cathode stream. These particles are extremely minute. They carry a negative charge of electricity, and are identified with the electric corpuscles of Thompson. Rays of the second kind are comparable in size to the hydrogen atom, and are positively electrified.
The peculiar ray's, now known as the cathode rays, not only cast a shadow, but are deflected by a magnet, so that the position of the phosphorescence on the sides of the tube may be altered by the proximity of a powerful magnet.
The chlorine liberated at the anode is employed in the manufacture of bleaching-salt, and the sodium is liberated at a mercury cathode, with which it at once enters into combination as an alloy. On throwing this alloy into water the sodium is liberated as caustic soda.
All these characteristics are found in the Röntgen rays. Professor J.J. Thomson adopts an analogous idea, and states the precise way in which the pulsations may be produced at the moment when the electrified particles forming the cathode rays suddenly strike the anticathode wall.
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