It may also be the parts of the walls at a distance from the cathode
which send a positive rush to the latter, by a similar mechanism. It
may be, again, that in certain regions of the tube cathode rays are
met with diffused by some solid object, without having thereby changed
their nature. All these complexities have been cleared up by M.
Villard, who has published, on these questions, some remarkably
ingenious and particularly careful experiments.
M. Villard has also studied the phenomena of the coiling of the rays
in a field, as already pointed out by Hittorf and Pluecker. When a
magnetic field acts on the cathode particle, the latter follows a
trajectory, generally helicoidal, which is anticipated by the theory.
We here have to do with a question of ballistics, and experiments duly
confirm the anticipations of the calculation. Nevertheless, rather
singular phenomena appear in the case of certain values of the field,
and these phenomena, dimly seen by Pluecker and Birkeland, have been
the object of experiments by M. Villard.
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