by the droplets, considered as uniform, as well as the total quantity of electricity carried by the ions which have served as centres for the formation of the drops. The charge thus obtained by Townsend was found to be 3 × 10-10 electrostatic units for each centre in the case of gases of electrolysis, and to 6.5 × 10-10 by J. J. Thomson from the first series of measurement on gases ionized by Roentgen rays.
H. A. Wilson obtained the ratio of charge to the mass of a drop more simply by comparing the velocity of fall under the action of gravity alone with the velocity of fall in a vertical electric field. He obtained thus directly the ratio sought for. This method has the advantage of showing that the electric charges are really carried by the drops, and of separating those drops which carry a single elementary charge from those which, by diffusion of the ions toward one another, carry a double or triple charge.
Wilson gives as the mean result of his measurements 3.1 × 10-10, a value very near to that of Townsend.
A second series of experiments by Professor J. J. Thomson, in which he used radioactive substances as sources of ionization more constant than the Crookes tube, and in which he took care to cause the drops to form on all the ions present in the gas, by producing a supersaturation of the water vapor by a rapid expansion of sufficient magnitude to cause the condensation on the ions of both kinds, gave as a mean result 3.4 × 10-10, a value in complete agreement with the other two experimenters. The principles of thermodynamics account perfectly for the influence of electrified centres on the condensation of water vapor: the electric charge of a drop in fact diminishes the pressure of water vapor in equilibrium with it. Moreover, the least supersaturation found necessary, by C. T. R. Wilson, for the formation of drops of water on the ions, which are the same whatever may be the means of producing them (Roentgen rays, Becquerel rays, brush discharge, action of ultra-violet light on metal negatively charged), allows us by purely thermodynamical reasoning to calculate approximately the charge carried by each of the ions, and this calculation, entirely distinct from direct measurement, gives in the case of the positive centres a value of 4 × 10-10 E. S. units.
(9) The Radiation Integral. More surprising still is the result recently obtained by H. A. Lorentz, who succeeded in basing a precise measurement of the elementary charges carried by the electrified centres present in metals on the experimental study of the radiation integral or black body radiation.
We will see how the emission and absorption of heat- and lightwaves by matter are dependent on the presence in it of electrons in motion. The ratio, for a radiation of given wave-length, between the emissive and absorptive power, a ratio independent of the nature
