methods (section 50), that the cathode rays consisted of a stream of negatively charged particles projected with great velocity. The particles behaved as if their mass was only about ¹⁄₁₀₀₀ of the mass of the atom of hydrogen, which is the lightest atom known. These corpuscles, as they were termed by Thomson, were found at a later date to be produced from a glowing carbon filament and from a zinc plate exposed to the action of ultra-violet light. They acted as isolated units of negative electricity, and, as we have seen, may be identified with the electrons studied mathematically by Larmor and Lorentz. Not only were these electrons produced by the action of light, heat, and the electric discharge, but similar bodies were also found to be emitted spontaneously from the radio-elements with a velocity far greater than that observed for the electrons in a vacuum tube.
The electrons produced in these various ways were all found to carry a negative charge, and to be apparently identical; for the ratio e/m of the charge of the electron to its mass was in all cases the same within the limits of experimental error. Since electrons, produced from different kinds of matter and under different conditions, were in all cases identical, it seemed probable that they were a constituent part of all matter. J. J. Thomson suggested that the atom is built up of a number of these negatively charged electrons combined in some way with corresponding positively charged bodies.
On this view the atoms of the chemical elements differ from one another only in the number and arrangement of the component electrons.
The removal of an electron from the atom in the case of ionization does not appear to affect permanently the stability of the system, for no evidence has so far been obtained to show that the passage of an intense electric discharge through a gas results in a permanent alteration of the structure of the atom. On the other hand, in the case of the radio-active bodies, a positively charged particle of mass about twice that of the hydrogen atom escapes from the heavy radio-atom. This loss appears to result at once in a permanent alteration of the atom, and causes a marked change in its physical and chemical properties. In addition there is no evidence that the process is reversible.
The expulsion of a β particle with great velocity from an atom of radio-active matter also results in a transformation of the atom. For example radium E emits a β particle, and, in consequence, gives rise to a distinct substance radium F (polonium). A case of this kind, where the expulsion of a β particle with great velocity causes a complete rearrangement of the parts of an atom, is probably quite distinct from the process which occurs during ionization, where a slow speed electron escapes from the atom without apparently affecting the stability of the atom left behind.
The only direct experimental evidence of the transformation of matter has been derived from a study of the radio-active bodies. If the disintegration theory, advanced to account for the phenomena of radio-activity, is correct in the main essentials, then the radio-elements are undergoing a spontaneous and continuous process of transformation into other and different kinds of matter. The rate of transformation is slow in uranium and thorium, but is fairly rapid in radium. It has been shown that the fraction of a mass of radium which is transformed per year is about ¹⁄₂₀₀₀ of the total amount present. In the case of uranium and thorium probably a million years would be required to produce a similar amount of change. Thus the process of