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ATOMS WITH S¹

appearance. The abrupt Increase in intensity at the distance d
is very marked in the parabola; it is_s however, the only one to
be detected. The intensity of this parabola is very great
and it might be thought that the charges in the intensity
might escape detection o\ring to the breadth of the curve. We
may, however, apply the same reasoning to the parabolas which
correspond to mercury atoms with three or four charges which
are fine and well defined. The intensity of these curves is, how-
ever, perfectly continuous and there are no signs of the abrupt
variations which ought to occur if the mercury atoms in the
discharge tube had charges intermediate between one and
eight. This result suggests that the ionization is mainly at
any rate of two types, in the one type an atom of mercury loses
a single corpuscle, In the other it loses eight There would thus
seem to be two different agents producing ionization in the dis-
charge tube. This is in accordance with another effect shown
by many of the plates; on these plates there are well marked
differences between the appearance of the lines due to charged
atoms and those due to charged molecules. These differences
are of various kinds: for example on the plate reproduced in
Fig. 29, Plate III, the line a due to the hydrogen atom is of uni-
form intensity throughout, while /3> the one due to the hydrogen
molecule, is very faint at the head but intense elsewhere; in
others the line due to the atom is uniform while that due to
the molecule has a beaded appearance. An example of this is
shown in Fig. 30, Plate III. Perhaps the most important point
shown by these plates is that when in a mixture of hydrogen and
oxygen there are such differences between the lines due to the
atoms and molecules of hydrogen, there are similar differences
between the lines due to the atoms and molecules of oxygen.
A similar result is obtained when the discharge passes through
mixtures of nitrogen and hydrogen. It is interesting to
observe that if we have along with these gases monatomic



	*ATOMS WITH* S¹ appearance. The abrupt Increase in intensity at the distance d is very marked in the parabola; it is_s however, the only one to be detected. The intensity of this parabola is very great and it might be thought that the charges in the intensity might escape detection o\ring to the breadth of the curve. We may, however, apply the same reasoning to the parabolas which correspond to mercury atoms with three or four charges which are fine and well defined. The intensity of these curves is, how- ever, perfectly continuous and there are no signs of the abrupt variations which ought to occur if the mercury atoms in the discharge tube had charges intermediate between one and eight. This result suggests that the ionization is mainly at any rate of two types, in the one type an atom of mercury loses a single corpuscle, In the other it loses eight There would thus seem to be two different agents producing ionization in the dis- charge tube. This is in accordance with another effect shown by many of the plates; on these plates there are well marked differences between the appearance of the lines due to charged atoms and those due to charged molecules. These differences are of various kinds: for example on the plate reproduced in Fig. 29, Plate III, the line a due to the hydrogen atom is of uni- form intensity throughout, while /3> the one due to the hydrogen molecule, is very faint at the head but intense elsewhere; in others the line due to the atom is uniform while that due to the molecule has a beaded appearance. An example of this is shown in Fig. 30, Plate III. Perhaps the most important point shown by these plates is that when in a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen there are such differences between the lines due to the atoms and molecules of hydrogen, there are similar differences between the lines due to the atoms and molecules of oxygen. A similar result is obtained when the discharge passes through mixtures of nitrogen and hydrogen. It is interesting to observe that if we have along with these gases monatomic 4*