equilibrium in the machine"—a conception which follows naturally from the combination of Watson's one-fluid theory with the prevalent doctrine of electrical atmospheres.[1]
A different explanation was put forward by Nollet, who performed electrical experiments in rarefied air at about the same time as Watson,[2] and saw in them a striking confirmation of his own hypothesis of efflux and afflux of electric matter.[3] According to Nollet, the particles of the effluent stream collide with those of the aflluent stream which is moving in the opposite direction; and being thus violently shaken, are excited to the point of emitting light.
Almost a century elapsed before anything more was discovered regarding the discharge in vacuous spaces. But in 1838 Faraday,[4] while passing a current from the electrical machine between two brass rods in rarefied air, noticed that the purple haze or stream of light which proceeded from the positive pole stopped short before it arrived at the negative rod. The negative rod, which was itself covered with a continuous glow, was thus separated from the purple column by a narrow dark space: to this, in honour of its discoverer, the name Faraday's dark space has generally been given by subsequent writers.
That vitreous and resinous electricity give rise to different types of discharge had long been known; and indeed, as we have seen,[5] it was the study of these differences that led Franklin to identify the electricity of glass with the superfluity of fluid, and the electricity of amber with the deficiency of it. But phenomena of this class are in general much more complex than might be supposed from the appearance which they present at a first examination; and the value of Faraday's discovery of the negative glow and dark space lay chiefly in the simple and definite character of these features of the discharge, which indicated them as promising subjects for further research. Faraday himself felt the importance of
