ABSTRACT
This chapter includes early papers written in New Zealand, at the Cavendish Laboratory and during the Montreal period (1894-1906), as well as an introduction to Rutherford's early work by Sir Edward Appleton, and some reminiscences of his time in Canada by Professors H. L. Bronson and Otto Hahn. This paper contains a preliminary account of experiments made to determine with accuracy the ratio e/m of the particles projected from radium. The rays from radium are complex and consist of particles projected with very different velocities. Such a source of rays is not suitable for accurate measurement, as the rays are unequally deflected in electric and magnetic fields. This difficulty was overcome by using an active wire exposed for some hours to the radium emanation as a source of rays. Fifteen minutes after removal, radium A has been almost completely transformed, and the activity is then due almost entirely to radium C. The electric deflection was determined by the photographic method.
