The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-01-17
bly, in the radium rays, but the damon,
ScintfliateS brilliantly.

bly, in the radium rays. but the diamond
scintfllates brilliantly.
The new metal has the curious prop
erty of communicating some of its quail
ties to other bodies. Thus any substance
placed near raoium SAT- mat is exposeo
| to the air becomes itself radioactive,
| though the activity will die away in time
But the most astounding fact about
radium is its ability to throw off heat
rays necessarily, without any appreciate
loss or bulk
| 1t is as though We beheld a burning
coal that gave out heat, day By day and
! year by year, without any visible sign
of the coal being reduced to ash-or, to
put it in another way, we have an engine
that does work without any expenditure
of fueI-and will keep on doing it for
millions of years TO come.
| 1t is u popular error to suppose that
radum contains. like stick of dynamite,
a vast store of concentrated energy that
is capable of instantaneous development
by explosion. The power of radiun lies
not so much in the intensity as in the
| Misunderstanding outflow of its energy.
Careful calculation has been made of
the energy of rsdium rays. If we were
able To gather together two tons of ra-
dunn, and If its heat rays could be utii-
lied and transformed continuously into
work without loss of friction etc, il
would be capable of exerting one-horse
power. Not much, you say for an
amount of radium that would pay off the
national debt of any two European gov
ernments.' Perhaps not. But if you came.
back TO look at your radium engine after
the lapse of a year it would still be run
ming, and the two tons of radium would
still be there. Did we say after the lapse
of a year? Our system of measurement
Is at fault. Let us try again, and sup
pose that radium had been known to the
ancient Babyionians, and that one of
them had gathered his two tons of radi-
UNI and started his engine on the plains
of Mesopotania some six thousand years
ago. That engine would DE running yet
and the two tons of radium would be as
big as ever Furthermore. d thousand
million years from now that two tons of
radium would still be pouring out its
scale we could not detect the loss of its
bewildering rays of energy, and If we
placed it on an ordinary commercial
instruments could do that.
Here lies the mystery of radium: 1t is
the case of the burning bush which is
not consumed
1T places the first serious quetsion
mark against the theory of the conserva-
ton of energy" eXclaims Lord Kelvin.
What is this?~ asks Sir William Ram
say as he watches the transformation of
radium vapor into helium, but an actual
case of that transmutation of one ele-
ment into another in which the ancient
alchemists believed?" And yet the facts
are such that there seems to be no escape
from the dilemma that forces US to these
momentous conclusions; for raulum is
found to be few degrees warmer than
the surrounding atmosphere, and remains
permanently so-giving off heat Without
sensible lowering of its temperature and
with a loss of it's weight of only 1-65,oo0
of a grain in a million years for each
fifteen hundreds of a square inch of its
surface-a direct contradiction apparent
Iy of the law of the conservation of
energy Moreover, the invisible gaseous
emanations of radium. collected and spec
troscopically examined by Ramsay, gave
after a certain time the characteristic
yellow line of helium-a clear instance,
as far as we know to the contrary, of the
change of one clement into another.
Thus nature seems to catch us once
more TO frame our postulates with an
if to hesitate long before writing lit
is finished at the foot of our fundament-
al theories. 1t cannot be denied that the
phenomena of radium lend Endorsement
TO the beautiful theory, dimly foreshad-
owed by Crookes and ali but proved by
Lodge that we must find new elemen-
tary conceptions of chemical physics,
based upon the existence of two great
nterdependent and fundamental units.
one of matter the other of force.
1t has been suggested. by way of escape
from the conservation-of-energy diem
to that OF the Horoscope to the X-rays.
catching and making sensible certain in
visible suns rays; in other words. that
radium is the medium, and not the or
iginal source of the heat. One might dis
miss the theory as merely ingenious were
il not that radium is showing. in very
active fashion. the same bactericidal
qualities as those ultraviolet rays of the
sun which are the curative agent IN
the Finsen light treatment.
Now the fact that radium rays and
the suns rays are both bactericidal
brings 10 mind that other coincidence,
namely. that the yellow line Of helium
is found in the spectra both of radium
vapor and of the sun. 1t is altogether
possible that. as our knowledge of this
wonderful element is extended shall
be called upon radically 10 modify our
present theories as to the nature and
origin of the suns light and heat.
We cannot just now do more than men,
ton few of the noteworthy properties
or radium Thus. for instance, ii eman
ates three different kinds of rays. one
OF which travels with a speed approach
ing that of light, or 10000 miles per sec
ond. in addition to its bactericidal ef
feets. as noted, it is fatal 10 small ami
mails that are exposed for a few hours TO
its influence and it will produce sores
upon the body Of any person should il
be brought for any length of time in con-
tact with. or proximity 70. the flesh.
IL is too early as Yet TO determine what
position radium will occupy in the arts
ana practical sciences. II took Mr.. Cur
RE and his wife some months to recover
from several tons OF the pitchblende re-
fuse in which il * found rs much OF il as