energy given by the kinetic theory, the free particles ought to be more numerous in it.
(49) Chemical Phenomena. It is by an action of the same kind that water, of great specific inductive capacity (smaller, however, than that of metals) causes the electrolytic dissociation of salts that are dissolved in it; it would be of great interest to determine the relation between this electrolytic dissociation, especially of liquid conductors, and the corpuscular dissociation common probably to gases and metals.
In electrolytic dissociation, the cathode corpuscles lost by the metallic atoms, instead of remaining free as in corpuscular dissociation, remain united to an atom or to a radical to form the negative ion in electrolytes. This question touches the relations between our actual ideas and chemistry, relations still very obscure, and which it would be very important to clear up. The electric dissociation produced in gases by Roentgen rays does not appear connected with any chemical modification; however, in air all intense ionization is accompanied by the formation of ozone. Here is a domain almost entirely unexplored.
X. Magnetic Properties
(50) Ampère and Weber. However, the complex phenomena of magnetism and diamagnetism have seemed so far to lead us to expect more difficulties, although the electrons gravitating in the atom in closed orbits furnish at first sight a simple representation of the molecular currents of Ampere, capable of turning under the action of an external magnetic field in order to give birth to induced magnetism, or of reacting by induction, according to the idea of Weber, against the external field so as to make the substance diamagnetic.
Those who have tried to follow out this idea have found it so far sterile; independently, different physicists have come to the conclusion that the hypothesis of electrons in undiminished motion cannot furnish a representation of the permanent phenomena of magnetism or diamagnetism.
I am enough of a parvenu to attempt to show, contrary to the preceding opinion, that it is possible to give, by means of the electrons, an exact signification to the ideas of Ampere and Weber, to find for para- and diamagnetism completely distinct interpretations, conforming to the laws experimentally established by Curie: weak magnetism, an attenuated form of ferromagnetism, varies inversely as the absolute temperature; on the other hand diamagnetism is shown to be, in all observed cases with the exception of bismuth, rigorously independent of the temperature. The theory which I propose takes
