Their slight amplitude, however, is the cause of there here being neither refraction nor diffraction phenomena, save in very special conditions.

If the cathode particle is not stopped in zero time, the pulsation will take a greater amplitude, and be, in consequence, more easily absorbable; to this is probably to be attributed the differences which may exist between different tubes and different rays.
It is right to add that some authors, notwithstanding the proved impossibility of deviating them in a magnetic field, have not renounced the idea of comparing them with the cathode rays.

They suppose, for instance, that the rays are formed by electrons animated with so great a velocity that their inertia, conformably with theories which I shall examine later, no longer permit them to be stopped in their course; this is, for instance, the theory upheld by Mr Sutherland.

We know, too, that to M.Gustave Le Bon they represent the extreme limit of material things, one of the last stages before the vanishing of matter on its return to the ether.
Everyone has heard of the N rays, whose name recalls the town of Nancy, where they were discovered.

In some of their singular properties they are akin to the X rays, while in others they are widely divergent from them.
M.Blondlot, one of the masters of contemporary physics, deeply respected by all who know him, admired by everyone for the penetration of his mind, and the author of works remarkable for the originality and sureness of his method, discovered them in radiations emitted from various sources, such as the sun, an incandescent light, a Nernst lamp, and even bodies previously exposed to the sun's rays.