CROOKES, WILLIAM.

Sur la Matière Radiante. Conférence faite a Sheffield, le 22 Aout 1879, devant L'Association Britannique pour L'Avancement des Sciences.

Paris, G. Masson, 1880. 8vo. Contemp. hcalf, raised bands, gilt spine. Light wear along edges. Small stamps on verso of titlepage. In: "Annales de Chimie et de Physique", 5e Series, Tome 19. 576 pp. and 1 folded engraved plate. (Entire volume offered). Crooke's paper: pp. 195-231 with 21 fine textillustrations of his apparatus.

First apperance - simutaneously with an English version - of the paper in which Crookes is summing up his importent investigations on cathode-rays, describing the "Crooke Tube", the "Lines of pressure", his "Light-Mill", his Radiometer and the electric discharge in rarified gases etc., investigations leading to the discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson in 1897.

"With his thorough grounding in the experimentally difficult art of vacuum physics, Crookes laid the foundation for the fuller investigation by J. J. Thomson of the behavior of radiant matter in the discharge tube, showing, for example, that it induced phosphorescence in minerals like the diamond; that it caused the glass of the discharge tube to phosphoresce; that its stream could be deflected by a magnet; and, most important of all, that since it cast a shadow of an opaque object (for example, a Maltese cross), it traveled in straight lines and was corpuscular in nature..."(DSB).

The volume contains further notable papers E.H. AMAGAT: "Mémoire sur la Compressabilité des Gaz à des Pressions élevees", pp. 345-385. LOUIS CAILLETET: "Sur la mesure des hautes Pressions", pp. 386-389.

Order-nr.: 49287