The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-10-11
MAKE EXPERIMENTS
WITH NEW RADIUM
Wonderful Element Keeps Sci
entists Busy Observing It's
Properties.

NEW YORK, Oct. 10.-Radium, the
new substance that is now calling forth
the greatest syStematiZed efforts by the
most brilliant scientific investigators
both here and abroad, is rapidly I'M
folding new properties that seemingly
defy the laws of nature, astound the
senses and mystify the human mind.
Only a fortnight has elapsed since a
new property of radiUm was discovered
by Prof. Curie. In the New York Her
aid Of recent date 1 described how
radium had been found to emit heat
and maintain temperature of three
degrees higher than the air which sur
rounds it.
1t was over this statement of Curie
that the eminent body of scientists who
have been working on the problem of
heat emissions of radium became di-
vided into two factions-those on the
one hand maintaining the truth of the
assertion and those on the other that
the statement was irreconcilable in
virtue of the established laws of the
conservation of energy.
But now it has been conclusively
demonstrated by Prof. Curie that radi-
UNI not only possesses this remark
able property, but that it's rate Of heat
emission remains unchanged regard
less of the temperature of the element
which surrounds it-tfat is, there is no
perceptlble Varia toll when the air that
surrounds it is 80 degrees or that of
312 degrees, when it becomes liquid
air.
If radium is immersed in liquid hy-
drogen, which is the greatest cold yet
produced, it begins to emit more heat,
instead of being cooled, as one would
naturally expect These experiments,
however, have failed to indicate in the
slightest degree how radiun can main
re Mt
1t has been suggested that radioactive
matter obtained its power of absorbing
neat and then giving it out just as a
pebble embedded in piece of ice and
heated by the suns rays would cause
the ice closest to it to melt.
Prof J. ]. Thomson has calculated
that the electric charge in the radium
atoms would by their disruption supply
the amount of energy it radiates for
10000 years before its internal energy
was completely used up. And all this
energy in the form of heat is produced
without any chemical composition and
without its molecular or atomic struc-
ture being altered in any way.
Yet with all its inexplicable prop
critics and mysterious actions radium
is not to be regarded as supernormal
element or that perpetual motion has
been obtained, for radium can be OBJ
tanned by the usual method Of chemical
analysis, forming salts and acids as
do other and better known substances,
and its atomic weight has been de-
termined as accurately as some of the
other rarer elements, all of which
shows that 1t is of the earth earthly
A beautiful little. instrument in
vented by Sir William Croekes, and
called by him the "spinthariscope" has
been placed upon the market for view
ing the emanations of a minute guam
Nf Il =
marvellous radioactive properties. To
those who are in possession of good
microscope the spinthariscope is in the
form of microscope slide and is pre-
pared by placing a small quantity of
radium in front of fuorescent screen,
and upon examination through the
microscope the scintillations can be
observed in a very satisfactory man
ner.
The object of the fuorescent screen
is to transform the invisible emana-
lions of radium into waves of light the
eye is capable of perceiving. This is
done by permitting the radium ema-
nations to impinge upon the fiuor-
escent screen, which, in turn, emitS
radiations longer than those absorbed
by it and thus rendering them visible.
A pocket spinthariscope is a clever
device for viewing radium activity
phenomena without high priced mi
croscope. 1t consists of tube one and
half inches long, with fuorescent
screen at one end, movable pointer
carrying the radium being placed over
1T, and above them powerful lens con-
tanned in sliding tube. In this case
the microscope is not required.
Radlum bulbs have also been placed
on the market and are employed in the
treatment of lupus, cancer, etc. The
bulbs consist of ten nilligrams of ra-
Nl1a e
Of an aluminium casing which is only
one hundredth of an inch in thickness
and is transparent to the radium ema-
nations. Behind the radium is placed a
backing of lead onete tenth of an inch
thick, to cut off its effects.
There are other bodies capable of
emitting heat radiations, such as po-
lonium, actinium and thorium, and at
the present writing it seems clear that
some of our theories relating to physics
will have to be very greatly modified
If Ot-indeed rewritten.