The San Francisco call., 1909-11-14

FlER this glorouS age OF achievement mas
n passed into history and been recorded
simply as an era Of remarkable progress; after
its iniracles-the miracles Of today-have be-
come mere commonplaces then what will take their
place dwarf them into crudtty and nsgnihcance?
What will the world of tomorrow be-the wonder
ful, magical. enchanting world beyond US? What
must it be?
It is very fascinating, this attempt to forecast;
and is by no means fanciful for the great discov
cries of the last decade have all been richer in proba
bties than they productive Of immediate results
IT, as has asserted, the surface Of science has
merely been scratched least beneath the there
are revealed quite clearly imtable opportunities for
future achievement.
The subject is a very expansive Volumes
might be written in the of forecast for the
recent progress made along all lines of achieve
ment is wonderfully diversified Just few can be
briefly touched upon here.
Let US begin by reviewing briefly some of the most
rearkabe discoveries of very recent years
Take radium. II lie a white powder-white by day
light, but glowing in the darkness like white hot
coal-made from the resdues Of pitchblende min
eral which is found in small quantities In this
try in North Carolina, Colorado and Utah.
The present cost of radium is enormous. Accord
ing to figures given by DR.. George F. Kunz of New
York gram of perfectly pure radium is worth
today the sum of 100000. An ouncs-which does
not exists, therefore, worth in round numbers
nearly s3oooooo, and pound would bring the colos
sal figure OF over s45.o00,ooo.
"But radium may become much cheaper" says Doc
tor Kunz Take calcium, for instance Not long
ago it brought $4,000 pound. Today you buy it
In England for shilling pound. 1 believe that
dunn will be cheaply produced-perhaps along
with other minerals silver for instance Carnotite,
recently discovered in the west in comparatively large
~I~IE 1A-AF.~
reduced cost"
A pinch Of the powder through spenthari-
scope gives appearance, described by Professor
Curie the dscoverer resembling the birth of
ton.
Within the Of postage stamp is heaven
of flashing meteors most brilliant in the center fainter
at the rim, where the stars glitter and die away
These stars are the rays of the powder ceaseessly
In motion and shooting of at speed estimated as
greater than s2.50o miles second.
With Terrific Energy
In other words, they particles of the radium
itself; and yet despite their constant myriad produc
ton and despite terrific energy of the whole micro
scopic mass the actual sustained by the radium
is practically nil.
That is the most wonderful, scarcely believable
property of this miraculous substance 1t gives off
tremendous heat and most brilliant light but herein
is the wonder OF it ALL that it yields that heat and
light without any appreciable loss of weight bulk
and moreover, il will continue this yield of energy
forever.
To put this in concrete form Professor Curie esti
mates that given quantity of radum will melt its
own weight of ice every hour and continue doing SO
till the end Of the world again. of his associates
calculates that fixed quantity of radium will throw
out light heat for 100000 years and lose only
one-month Of its power.