The experiment was made twice by Rowland, once in Berlin, once in Baltimore. It was afterwards repeated by Himstedt. These physicists even announced that they had succeeded in making quantitative measurements.
In fact, for twenty years Rowland's law was admitted without objection by all physicists. Besides everything seemed to confirm it. The spark certainly does produce a magnetic effect. Now does it not seem probable that the discharge by spark is due to particles taken from one of the electrodes and transferred to the other electrode with their charge? Is not the very spectrum of the spark, in which we recognize the lines of the metal of the electrode, a proof of it? The spark would then be a veritable current of convection.
On the other hand, it is also admitted that in an electrolyte the electricity is carried by the ions in motion. The current in an electrolyte would therefore be also a current of convection; now, it acts on the magnetic needle.
The same for cathode rays. Crookes attributed these rays to a very subtile matter charged with electricity and moving with a very great velocity. He regarded them, in other words, as currents of convection. Now these cathode rays are deviated by the magnet. In virtue of the principle of action and reaction, they should in turn deviate the magnetic needle. It is true that Hertz believed he had demonstrated that the cathode rays do not carry electricity, and that they do not act on the magnetic needle. But Hertz was mistaken. First of all, Perrin succeeded in collecting the electricity carried by these rays, electricity of which Hertz denied the existence; the German scientist appears to have been deceived by effects due to the action of X-rays, which were not yet discovered. Afterwards, and quite recently, the action of the cathode rays on the magnetic needle has been put in evidence.
Thus all these phenomena regarded as currents of convection, sparks, electrolytic currents, cathode rays, act in the same manner on the galvanometer and in conformity with Rowland's law.
VI. THEORY OF LORENTZ.--We soon went farther. According to the theory of Lorentz, currents of conduction themselves would be true currents of convection. Electricity would remain inseparably connected with certain material particles called _electrons_. The circulation of these electrons through bodies would produce voltaic currents. And what would distinguish conductors from insulators would be that the one could be traversed by these electrons while the others would arrest their movements.