The sun., 1903-09-13

raoium whose radio-activity ranged from
W TO 1000. Under the box he put steel
magnet three-eighths Of an inch thick.
Beneath the magnet rested photo-negative
plate In twenty-five hours he ended his
photograph, or rather radiograph process.
In those twenty-five hours the strongest
radium had bored it's way through both the
lead and the steel to such an extent that the
negative above that radium was very light
nearly white, in fact Tie section above
the weakest radium was not very dark
M. Hammer has also made some striking
photographs Of mice which he caught in
trap The Photograph Of one Of these mice
was made with the animals head in the
trap. just IA 1t had been caught. In that
particular photograph, whose exposure
was three days, the wood Of the trap was
shown to be clearly transparent, as with
the X-rays. and the steel parts were entirely
Opaque. The mouse itself was slightly
transparent. indicating that the radium rays
had Jared with the animals bones as a.
rays would have Jared
WHAT Is RApIUM?
The source OF all this energy IL puzzle
which is likely to receive the attention OF
scientists for years. One of Prof. Curie's
remarks on this phase is reproduced in
Mr. Hammers book 1t is as follows
Il found that the radium is setting oil
heat continually and in a very large amount;
each gramme Of the radium is setting OF
each hour 100 small calories, or in other
words it is setting OF heat enough o melt in
each hour its own weight in ice.
10, 81 - shs
Both Nine. Curie and myself are unable
to go beyond hypothesis; one Of these
consists in supposing the at oms OF radium
evolving and transforming into another
simple body and. despite the extreme slow
ness Of that transformation which cennot be
located during year, the amount of energy
involved in that transformation is tre-
mendous.
"The second hypothesis consists in the
supposition that radium is capable of cap
turing and utilizing some radiations of
unknown nature which cross space with
out our knowledge"
Mr.. Hammer refers to another theory,
that there ia going on succession of
chemical changes, causing the spontaneous
projection Of larger masses of material
at enormous velocities and that while
certain portions are constantly dying out
and becoming inert, other portions are
constantly growing in strength and power.
He adds this later on:
when one considers the remarkable
effects produced by radium it would almost
seem that it is matter tearing itself into
tiny pieces, and projecting these infni-
tesimnlly small particles through all matter
at a speed from half to even the full speed
of light (ls8 600 miles second) and rem
dering all substances about it radioactive
and still without appreciable loss In weight
in the original substance and without
disparagement Of the accepted wave theory
Of light one naturally 'harks back to New
tons corpuscular theory Of light.
while various theories have been ad-
yanced to account for the phenomena Of
radium there remain many things which
have not been satisfactorily accounted for,
and perhaps the subject which has been
most widely discussed is the loss in weight
Of radioactive substances.
Prof Henri Becquerel, Prof. j. J, Thom-
son and others have said that IL a square
centimetre Of surface were covered with
pure radium it would lose in weight only
ne-thousandth OF miligramme in a
million years. From that it might be as
sumed that radium doesn't fade away go
very, very fast