VII. On the stratifications in electrical discharges, as observed in torricellian and other vacua. —Second communication

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Abstract
60. In my former communication I stated that I had obtained several vacua tubes from M. Geissler of Bonn; shortly afterwards I had the pleasure of a visit from M. Plücker, the distinguished Professor of Physics in that University, when I ascertained that the experiments to which I referred as having been made in Germany, had been made by that gentleman in vacua-tubes constructed by M. Geissler. During Professor Plücker’s visit to this country, I witnessed, in the laboratory of the Royal Institution, his experiments on the action of a powerful electro-magnet on the negative luminous discharges from an inductive coil, which discharges in vacuo , under the influence of the magnet, “coincide in their direction with magnetic curves;” this phenomenon is very clearly shown in Geissler’s tubes, in which the wires are hermetically sealed at the extreme ends, projecting in a straight direction along the tube. Through the kindness of Mr. J. J. Griffin, I had the opportunity of experimenting with upwards of sixty of Geissler’s vacua-tubes, in which many beautiful and novel results are produced; in some, for several seconds after the discharges had ceased, the tubes remained throughout their entire length highly phosphorescent. I have not been able to ascertain with accuracy what is the gas, which, however attenuated, must remain in each tube; but from most of them being constructed of a varied form, the discharge presents in the several portions of the same tube an entirely different appearance, not only in colour, but also in the form of the stratifications.

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