M.Pellat, in particular, has given some very fine examples of this concordance between the theory and the facts he has skilfully observed.
In all the circumstances, then, in which ions appear, their formation has doubtless been provoked by a mechanism analogous to that of the shock.

The X rays, if they are attributable to sudden variations in the ether--that is to say, a variation of the two vectors of Hertz-- themselves produce within the atom a kind of electric impulse which breaks it into two electrified fragments; _i.e._ the positive centre, the size of the molecule itself, and the negative centre, constituted by an electron a thousand times smaller.

Round these two centres, at the ordinary temperature, are agglomerated by attraction other molecules, and in this manner the ions whose properties have just been studied are formed.
Sec.4.ELECTRONS IN METALS The success of the ionic hypothesis as an interpretation of the conductivity of electrolytes and gases has suggested the desire to try if a similar hypothesis can represent the ordinary conductivity of metals.

We are thus led to conceptions which at first sight seem audacious because they are contrary to our habits of mind.

They must not, however, be rejected on that account.