The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1905-01-26
The Rev. Florence Buck Gives an
Interesting Lecture on Newest
Element Known to Science
WOMAN'S WORK AS SCIENTIST
Miss Buck Speaks With Pride of the
Successful Experiments of Madame
Curie in the Field of Radio
Activity.-Fine Lecture.

1SIfy formed the oasis TOT d very
charming scientific lecture given at
Guild hall Thursday evening by the
Rev. Florence Buck, pastor of the
First Unitarian church. The lecture
was given under the auspices of the
Woman's club and was in great
part repetition of the splendid pa
per which had been presented before
the club fortnight ago.
The name ssRadium" seems to con-
jure up mystery in the minds Of even
the people who care little for science
and its triumphs, and this fact was
sufficient to Eli the hall to the doors
Thursday night. All were amply re-
paid for their presence.
Miss Buck has had reputation in
Kenosha as 1itterateur and as pub
lie speaker, but her lecture Thursday
night showed that she was scientist
of rare accomplishments, and her lee
ture even outranks the stories of ra-
dunn given out by the experts of the
one of commanding interest, and
while the scientific subject might
have been dry under ordinary treat
ment, in the words of the speaker
Thursday night it became as interest
ing as the finest Of fiction.
Before telling Of the struggles and
triumphs of Madame Curie, the little
Polish woman who is now considered
one of the greatest scientists of the
century just past, Miss Buck told
something of the experiments which
led up to the discovery of this newest
element in the chemical and material
world. She spoke of radium as the
product of the x or Roetgen ray, and
showed that the efforts of scientists to
find new way to produce the X-ray
had resulted in the discovery of the
salt of radium.
She told of the struggles of Prof.
Beckere11 and the discovery of
the Beckere11 rays, and it brought her
to the story of Madame Curie.
Madame Curie was Polish woman,
born and educated in Warsaw. She
was born in 1864 and twenty-four
years later she had completed her ed
ucation at Warsaw and had gone to
the University of Paris to take her
masters degree. While in the uni
versity she was married to Prof.
Curie, the head of the department OF
Physics in the great university
d After giving year to her home she
decided that she would re-enter col
l1ege and take her doctor degree, and
to this end she decided that her work
should be an investigation of the diff
ferent substances which would pro
duce the Beckere1 rays. This work
opened to her many new avenues
She passed through the examination
of the different Uranium compounds
and when she had completed these ex
an1inations she sought to dig deeper
into the subject. Pitch blend ha6
been the substance of her investiga.
tons, and one day by chance she dis.
covered that the compound of the
pitch blend left after the removal Of
the uranium compounds was more
radio active than it had been before
the uranium was removed. This
opened the way. for the interesting in.
/ vestigations. By many treatments
Madame Curie continued her investi.
cations until finally she had discov.
cred the salt of radium. It was a work
of years, and in the completion of her
experiments Mrs. Curie spent for
tuna Tho ;nuoc+;aro4 ;ox1 +,,;ert,4 howe
failed on account of lack of funds,
but the Austrian government came tc
the aid of the little woman, and with
this assistance she was enabled to
open factory just out of Paris for
the working of the pitch blend, and
sufficient of it was worked up to com.
p1ete the work and allow Madame
| Curie to make the greatest scientific
discovery of the century.
Madame Curie was a woman who
knew things, and when she had found
the tiny particle of radium chloride
it was only few grains but it was
sufficient and she at once announced
her discovery to the world.
The result of her experiments
showed that the substance which she
had discovered was more than a mil.
lion times as radioactive as the
uranium compounds, and she gave
this little substance the name OF
"Radium. =
Her work was Immediately recog-
nized by the scientific world and
Madame Curie was given the honor OF
making the greatest scientific discbv-
cry since the time of the discovery OF
the atomic theory by Dalton.
The Swedish government at once
recognized the new scientist in a
substantial way and presented the
discoverer with the Nobel prize, which
was valued at SIS, ZOO.
Miss Buck then told of the various
experiments that had been made
by Madame Gurie to show that she
had really discovered a new element
in chemistry of it's effect on the
spectrum and the electroscope. She
told of the strange action of the COM