The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-17
THAT woMDERruL METAL.


 plainabIe problem that has ever been brought before them. ordsAarialy. heat Is the result Of combustion, and, com bustion means the destruction or wasting of the material or Substance from which the heat proceeds. When wood or coal is burned it gives out heat but the wood or | coal is consumed. No one has yet dis covered beyond controversy how the con tinuous heat of the sun is produced. We know that we get light and heat from that great luminary, but we do not know Just how itsis produced or why 1t is ap- parently without change or limitation. Bnt the sun is a long way off and the scientists labor under great disadvan. tages in trying to explain its heat. This new metal on the contrary, is palpa- bie substance, not oniylto be handled and studied at close range but the method of producingit is known. Investigators and students can handte 1t, just as they can handle iron. or copper. but it is still g. mystery. Here is solid substance which gives off heat in some mysterious manner without losing any of itsthubstance. "A bit as big as a grain of sand" one au- thority tells us, .sends out enough rays to blister the skin." Another, tells us that it ..has been known to give out heat for year or two with no perceptible diminution-" Sir William crookes. who is an eminent authority on light. heat and electricity says that fin some way not yet explained the radium replenishes its energy from the movements of the mole- cules of air surrounding it.
 Those words mot yet explained' are significant. Professor and Madame Gu rie, of Paris, have been at work six years experimenting. From 8 ton of pitch blende, found in Bohemia, they extracted only two decigrams of radium, which would be but little over three grains, Troy weight. 1t cost them at the rate of $l0,ooo a gram, which is less than one thirtieth of an ounce Troy. Practically there is no market value to the substance, and these figures show the difficulty of extracting 1t. Prof. Curie estimates that to produce the amount represented by an English ton would cost s10,O0O,OOO.
 But radium is not yet marketable metal. The statement that it is worth now one million dollars pound only shows the scarcity of it and the difficulty of making or extracting It. The time may come when 1t can be produced plentifully and cheaply. It has been but compara- lively few years since aluminium was an exceedingly rare and costly metal. Now 1t is becoming almost as cheap as copper. It may be that the new netaf will never be produced in large quantities. but we do not know that. In fact we know but lit- tle, and we certainly do not know that its production on large scale Is impos- sible.
 Just here is the annoying feature of the discovery. If it can only be produced in very small quantities, as at present. it will be of no practical use. but suppose it could be produced in pounds where they now get only grains-what would be the result? It would revolutionize the indus- World declares that 'the energy of one small crystal would suffice to run all the steam or electric power of New York for & thousand years" ,-+a s t',
 While this is probably the extravagant language of an enthusiast it is certain that if 1t could be produced cheaply and plentifully it would be the greatest dis oovery ever made, not excepting electric ity. Heat produces power, as all know, and if a bit of radium as big as grain of sand gives out enough heat to blister the skin, who can estimate the power which would be given out by even one pound of 1t? Only imagine the machinery that could be driven by 1t! It would su- percede electricity and obviate the con sumption of coal and wood because it would produce steam without any ex- pense except the original cost of mate- rial and machinery.
 But all this does not solve the mystery Speculating on what might be does not tell us why certain results:a are produced. It is known that radium gives out heat, but how does 1t do that continuously and not part with any of its substance, One scientist claims that this metal "in some unexplained way" mark you, extracts heat from the air and gives 1t back again. This is a sort of perpetual motion pro- cess, very interesting to speculate about, but not very satisfactory. They can't tell us why this heat is in the atmos- phere without our knowledge, why this metal can gather it to itself, or how 1t can throw it out. In truth, the wisest of them know little more than the rest of us do. They know that here is a very scarce and expensive metal which possesses and gives out an energy which cannot be ex- plained and which Is so enormous that 1t cannot be measured. Will we ever know any more about 1t?
 --S~.
 The esteemed Minneapolis Journal is getting sadly mixed over the many phases of the negro question. and thus epitomizes some of its troubles:
 The Naaswith a ready made remedy for the race paSblem is in trouble these days 1t Is also troublesome time for the man who thinks he understands the problem Tennessee people object to negroes as ru- ral mail carriers because of the fear white women throughout the South have or assault by negroes; the Southern press praises Booker Washington for his work at Tuskegee. and at the same time a popular subscrintion is made in Atlau+a