Owing to its physical and chemical properties being greatly different from those of any of the liquids which have hitherto been used in the Wilson cloud chamber, mercury has been used in the experiments described in this paper and the condensation phenomena of its vapour at different temperatures observed. Before constructing the apparatus it was considered necessary to get from theoretical considerations some idea about the magnitude of the critical supersaturation for mercury vapour in equilibrium with a drop carrying unit charge. Assuming that J. J. Thomson's formula.

where s is the supersaturation of mercury vapour in equilibrium with a drop of mercury of radius a, charge e, density σ and surface tension T, the value of which is assumed here to be independent of the radius of the drop, K the specific inductive capacity of the dielectric surrounding the drop, and R the gas constant for one gramme of weight, all at temperature θ, can be applied to the present problem, this critical supersaturation sm is given by the formula