M. Langevin, who has made himself the eloquent apostle of the new doctrines in France, and has done much to make them understood and admitted, has personally undertaken experiments analogous to those of M. Zeleny, but much more complete.  He has studied in a very ingenious manner, not only the mobilities, but also the law of recombination which regulates the spontaneous return of the gas to its normal state.  He has determined experimentally the relation of the number of recombinations to the number of collisions between two ions of contrary sign, by studying the variation produced by a change in the value of the field, in the quantity of electricity which can be collected in the gas separating two parallel metallic plates, after the passage through it for a very short time of the Roentgen rays emitted during one discharge of a Crookes tube.  If the image of the ions is indeed conformable to reality, this relation must evidently always be smaller than unity, and must tend towards this value when the mobility of the ions diminishes, that is to say, when the pressure of the gas increases.  The results obtained are in perfect accord with this anticipation.

On the other hand, M. Langevin has succeeded, by following the displacement of the ions between the parallel plates after the ionisation produced by the radiation, in determining the absolute values of the mobilities with great precision, and has thus clearly placed in evidence the irregularity of the mobilities of the positive and negative ions respectively.  Their mass can be calculated when we know, through experiments of this kind, the speed of the ions in a given field, and on the other hand—­as we can now estimate their electric charge—­the force which moves them.  They evidently progress more slowly the larger they are; and in the viscous medium constituted by the gas, the displacement is effected at a speed sensibly proportional to the motive power.

At the ordinary temperature these masses are relatively considerable, and are greater for the positive than for the negative ions, that is to say, they are about the order of some ten molecules.  The ions, therefore, seem to be formed by an agglomeration of neutral molecules maintained round an electrified centre by electrostatic attraction.  If the temperature rises, the thermal agitation will become great enough to prevent the molecules from remaining linked to the centre.  By measurements effected on the gases of flames, we arrive at very different values of the masses from those found for ordinary ions, and above all, very different ones for ions of contrary sign.  The negative ions have much more considerable velocities than the positive ones.  The latter also seem to be of the same size as atoms; and the first-named must, consequently, be considered as very much smaller, and probably about a thousand times less.

Thus, for the first time in science, the idea appears that the atom is not the smallest fraction of matter to be considered.  Fragments a thousand times smaller may exist which possess, however, a negative charge.  These are the electrons, which other considerations will again bring to our notice.