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In the early days of electricity it was found that when an electric spark from a frictional machine was sent through a glass bulb from which the air had been sucked by an air pump, a cloudy light filled the bulb, which was therefore called an "electric egg". Hittorf and others improved on this effect by employing the spark from an induction coil and large tubes, highly exhausted of air, or containing a rare infusion of other gases, such as hydrogen.
All these complexities have been cleared up by M. Villard, who has published, on these questions, some remarkably ingenious and particularly careful experiments. M. Villard has also studied the phenomena of the coiling of the rays in a field, as already pointed out by Hittorf and Plücker.
This theory is still further supported by the resistance on the negative electrodes noticed by Hittorf, which almost explains Erdman's experiments, because if negative electricity enters a flame with greater difficulty, then positive electricity must leave a flame with difficulty. W. Holtz, in Wiedemanris Beiblaetter to Poggendorfs Annalen.
The long clear windows for there are no more stained-glass windows at Rheims let in bright daylight; all the light of May was in the church. The Archbishop was covered with gilding and the altar with rays. Marshal de Lauriston, Minister of the King's Household, rejoiced at the sunshine. He came and went, as busy as could be, and conversed in low tones with Lecointe and Hittorf, the architects.
About 1869, Hittorf made an already very complete study of them and put in evidence their principal properties; but it was the researches of Sir W. Crookes in especial which drew attention to them.
Concerning vacuum tubes, he said that he preferred the Hittorf, because it had the most perfect vacuum, the highest degree of air exhaustion being the consummation most desirable. In answer to a question, "What of the future?" he said: "I am not a prophet, and I am opposed to prophesying. I am pursuing my investigations, and as fast as my results are verified I shall make them public."
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