a charged centre: these are the Kanalstrahlen of Goldstein, an efflux of positive charges toward the cathode, the electric and magnetic deviations of which lead to values for the ratio of e/m varying between wide limits, but always several thousand times smaller than for the cathode rays. The mass of these positive centres is of the order of that of the atoms. The α rays of radioactive bodies, easily absorbed, and particularly easy to observe in the case of polonium and the active bismuth of Marckwald, appear to be, in fact, Kanalstrahlen. The mass of the positively charged particles which constitute these rays is of the same order as that of the hydrogen atom, and their velocity does not exceed 20,000 to 25,000 kilometers per second, so that it is impossible to verify whether their mass is entirely electromagnetic or not. Can we consider them as electrons as simple as the negative corpuscle itself, or are they of much more complex structure; are they, for example, atoms or molecules which have lost a cathode corpuscle?
(37) Electrons or Atoms. On the first hypothesis, the great mass of the positive centres would lead us to assign them dimensions much smaller than the cathode corpuscles themselves, the electromagnetic mass of an electrified sphere being inversely proportional to its radius. One is thus led to the result that an electron possesses inertia, I will not say weight, inversely proportional to its radius. H. A. Wilson thinks to find an argument in favor of this conception of a very small and consequently very inert positive electron in the observation that the α rays are much less easily absorbed than the β rays of the same velocity.
Many other reasons lead us to adopt the contrary hypothesis that an α particle is very complex and little different from an atom. Rutherford has given serious reasons for identifying the α particle with the helium atom deprived of a cathode corpuscle; also Stark gives experimental reasons referring to the emission spectra of positive centres in vacuum tubes, which imply a complex structure. Finally the theory of the disruptive discharge attributes the production of cathode rays in part at least to the impact against the cathode of particles which constitute the Goldstein rays; an electron smaller than the cathode particle itself seems scarcely able to produce a surface disturbance sufficiently intense, while on the other hand, an atom, unable to penetrate another atomic structure, and projected with a high velocity, would produce by its impact a considerable local disturbance.
(38) The Positive charge of the a Rays. It is perhaps by this considerable disturbance produced by the α or canal rays in matter which they meet that one can explain the interesting fact that the positive charge of the α rays has not been directly shown so far by the negative charge which a polonium salt should spontaneously
