Patterns produced by Charged Conductors on Sensitive Plates

Abstract

IN the course of a recent X-ray lecture demonstration, I accidentally got what is, so far as I know, a novel, and certainly an interesting result. Having taken a radiograph of three small wire skeletons enclosed in cardboard bodies, on the developed plate (covered with a plain glass pressed upon the film) being put into the lantern, I noticed the precipitated silver particles set themselves in certain lines. These radiated normally from the skulls and limbs of the figures, and in the more open parts of the background set themselves into a key or fret pattern. I concluded, on further examination, that this effect was probably due to a state of electric strain induced by the Röntgen tube, but it was only upon the softening of the gelatine film by the heat of the lantern that the particles were set free, so as to obey the electric impulse to which they were subjected.