The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-14

Just outside of Paris lives quiet do- nestle woman who looks well to the ways of her household. She does not shine ir society, she never dazxled anybody with the splendor of her gowns, never made another woman envious of them. Sne mas said that the one thing in which she takes pride is her good housekeeping. A Polish woman by birth, she married French professor in the School of Physics and industrial Chemistry at Paris and went to live with him. His name Is Professor Curie. He is an enthusiastic student of chemistry.
 His wife is also an enthusiast in chem istry. In the off spells of her housekeep- ing and child minding she has expert mented in her laboratory at home. Not having to dazzle anybody socially, and both herself and her husband being from choice very simple in their style of living, Mime. Curie. the woman chemist who lov- ed scientific research as she loved life itself. had considerable time to experi- ment
 An odd taste, wasn't it, that woman should prefer studying and experimenting In a chemical laboratory to concocting new costumes which she could not al- ways afford and shining in society," But 90 1t was. She was of the race of new woman. born perhaps a little before her time, like the first human child of the anthropoid ape, to show what Is coming.
 Mime. Curie and her husband appear to be ''soul mates" if there is any such thing. They worked together. one supple menting the other in the experiments they were able to make in their spare time--he from his college featuring. she from her family and housekeeping. The name of Curie became known among those making original research in chemistry But, being man. the husband got the credit for 1t. The home keeping wife was only known as sort of assistant, his head bottle washer. as 1t were.
 A hundred and fourteen years ego the metal uranium was discoyered. It was found in considerable quantity in the min lessor Henri Becquerel discovered that salts of uranium emitted an invisible radiation" that is to say, possessed what chemists call radio activity: This is the streams of infinitesimal particles that travel with inconceivable velocity. There was no doubt of the existence of these rays, for they went through metals and other solid bodies and produced images upon a photographic plate.
 Mime. Curie was naturally interested in the radio activity of the salts of uranium and made experiments on her own ac- count. She took pitchblende and separ- ated its various chemical components She found that some Of these compounde exhibited radio activity In more marked degree than even the extracted salts of uranium did.
 A thought struck her, chain of men, tai lightning flashed through her brain. It made her eye kindle. her cheeks flush, her heart, beat quickly. In brief. if the pitchblende compounds exhibited the strange quality, even after the uranium had been separated from them, then were there not other elements in the pitchblende that possessed the same prop erty of throwing off the powerfully pene- trating streams of infinitesimal particles A woman does not possess real reasoning power, of course. Oh, no! But In some way, all out of ner own head. Mme. Curie arrived at the conclusion that such must be the case.
 She began a eeries of experiments on the refuse or slag of pitchblende after the uranium salts had been extracted so as to make sure of what seemed to her a probability. Day after day, in tho off spells of housekeeping and looking of. ter her little daughter, she wrought with solvent and crucibie. At last. enraptured she found a new element which gave of