c.1870, English, signed to air tap and wooden base 'Harvey & Peak, London', heavy gauge hand-blown glass with all lacquered brass fittings, with internal electromagnet, height 51cm; The De La Rive Tube was used to show that the lighted streamers appearing in Geissler tubes are in fact streams of charged particles. The tube is essentially a electric egg but with the addition of a soft iron core electromagnet to show the movement of the particles in relation to the magnetic field.