The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-03
MANY ATTEND THE RADIUM LECTURES Great Interest Taken in Exhibit
 at the Fair vEEY SMALL PIECES USED The Exhibit Is So Small That Maan'- lying Glass Must Be Used.
 Something About Won
 ders of Radium.
 
vEEY SMALL PIECES USED
nv MARTHA L. ROOT.

l st Touis. July 3.-In the United States government budding at the Worios ialr two lectures are given daily on the new a,a,,anf. radium. The pike itself is hard ,,, more popular than these demonstra- | t,ons Each session the room is crowded to it's utmost standing capacity and after the exhibitions people crowd about the nlace to see the radium and to ask popu- lar questions.
 They are eager to know If radium will cure cancer. or typhoid fever. Does it establish perpetual motion?' is asked con stantly.
 We cannot say that 1t will cure can cer; 1t is being tried" said the demon strator the other morning,
 One of the assistants explained that in case or cancer (and other diseases tool by giving the patient quinine, radium rays turned upon the body would so illuminate the flesh that cancer could be distinct ly seen. These same rays are used to burn out this dreaded germAand they are also employed successfully in destroying typhus germs.
 Scientists claim for this new element that the internal fires which nourish bit of radium and make 1t glow with Its own light must have been at work When the earth itself was a sun, and for all we know will continue after many bodies now suns have grown cold.
 The sum of knowledge respecting ra- dium is that it exists. It was discovered by means of its powerful radiations long before any radium had been obtained from pitchblende or any evidence of its pres ence existed.
 Due to Three Elements.
 Scientists claim that this remarkable power of radiation has been traced to three elements, and three only of the many clements present in the minerals in question. Two of them, uranium. and thorum. have long been known to chem ists, but these possess the property to very feeble degree The third, radium' possesses the power of radiation to such a. remarkable extent, that although it ex- ists in the mineral pitchblende in the pro- portion of less than one-millionth part Of the whole, It yet makes the substance several times as active as pure uranium or thoriunh. Just as helium was discover cred by means of its spectrum in the sun before any samples of helium was in the possession of any terrestrial chemists so radium was discovered by means of its powerful radiations. Computation of the total atomic energy of one gram of radium has been made a sixteen candle power incandescent lamp over period of millions of years.
 If radium is what some of these sci entists conjecture. the discovery of radium is second only to the discovery of the law of gravitation. It would change our present commerce, industries, and sys- tems until we would be as far beyond our present progress as we are now this Worlds fair year beyond the primitive Indian If this indeed were so, Mime. Curie, who so logically and brilliantly discovered this new element, should be invited to the Worlds fair as its most distinguished guest.
 l. Pure Radium Not Shown. At the radium exhibitions they say that