Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-01-17

radium in waste from Bohemian mines
had no premonition of the laurels tha
were coming, and when they came the
Curies were modest, almost resentfu
of the attention that was heaped upor
them.
Radium was found to have the value
In medicine Of the X-rays. 1t was dis.
covered that it was the most certain
| test for diamonds, that 1t would burr
the skin through metal box and al
sorts of insulation; that the rays OF
emanations were of a gaseous nature
| like helium gas, which could be bot.
tied; that they penetrated any SUBJ
stance and gave any substance the
qualities of radium, but at that time
the quantity of radium in the world
| was infinitesimal; it had not been iso-
| lated and the scientists had not learn
ed enough of it to bring it's properties
into juxtaposition to their time honored
principles.
Still it was interesting, wonderfully
fascinating. and Prof. Curie was asked
to lecture on its properties before the
Sorbonne.
After that lecture honors came rap
idly. The fact that 1t cost over $4,000
900 to produce a pound Of 1t from $500
tons of pitchhlende deferred the poor
chemistry instructor from putting
great quantities of 1t before scientific
bodies for their study. The announce
ment that there was more gold in sea
water than radium in pi.chhlende led
the general public to believe that II
was such a rare and unattainable sub
stance that It would nevefebe Of much
practical service. They did not know
how little of it would work miracles
and how little II would take to set the
scientists to revising their chemical
axioms.
In 1905 the Roval Society of Great
Britain presented the Curies with med
ais in recognition Of their contribu-
tions to science. They received the
Nobel prize and a short time after
Prof Curie was given chair in the
Sorbonne.
True Disciple of Science.
Then in 1906 when Curie was riding
his bicycle he was run over and car
ried home dead, Nine. Curie, the i'm
passive woman of science, made no
demonstration of sorrow. She shed no
tears She silently prepared for the
obsequies, attended to her two little
children, and in all ways in her grief
was the same modest, quiet little wo-
man she had been in her scientific
triumph. After the funeral there was
some talk Of giving her her husbands
place in the faculty Of the university
of the Sorbonne. She expressed no en-
thusiasm about this. Honors had been
Droffered her before and she had con-
sistently refused them.
When she was unanimously elected
to take Pierre Curie's chair all France
half suspected she would refuse It,
though no woman had ever been offer
ed a place in the faculty Of a univer-
sity before. 1t was an unprecedented
honor, and after much persuasion
Nine. Curie did accept it. Thousands
Of people turned out to hear her first
lecture, and the people who crowded
the lecture room were surprised to see
an emaciated little woman with por-
tentous brow but not the slightest
symptom of Partisan chic in her ap-
pearance. She Is not beautiful. Hers
is plain Polish countenance with the
high cheekbone and round chin, and
the only feature that impresses one Is
the high, rounded forehead.
One woman only had ever occupied
the position which Nine. Curie had oc-
cupied, and she did not hold 1t official
ly. That woman was Novella, the
beautiful daughter Of Jean dAndre Of
the University of Bologna When Jean
was i'll his daughter lectured eloquently
on canonic law, but Petrarch and some
other youthful students paid so much
atteRtieH-te--the fair face that they
failed to take notes, so the city faith
ers forced her to lecture behind a cur
tain.
Nine. Curie Is not a sensationalist.
however, either in appearance or man.
ner. Her modesty Is the first thing
that impresses you and her simplicity
the second. She Is a mother OF two
children, and a mother primarily. Sec
ondarily she is a scientist and last of
all a lecturer, recipient Of honors and
candidate for membership in the
French Academy of Sciences.
New Revolution In Chemical Theories?
If they admit her it will not be be-
cause she is a woman, that Is certain.
1t will be because she has been the
chief experimenter in a field which has
forced the chemists to put a question
mark at the end Of their long catalogue
of elements and has led many of them
to consider the proto-atomic theory
that Is, the theory that all matter Is
essentially one and that the division
into elements Is simply an arbitrary
not based upon chemical
fact. Moreover, does not radium
emanate light which penetrates objects
which light has never penetrated? And
does not this emanation appear to have
an actual corpuscular character as If
1t were made up of fine particles
thrown off from the body of the metal?
All this is opposed to the vibratory
theory of light which has long been in
good scientific standing and takes
science back to the days Of Newton, the
who propounded the corpus
cular theories of light.
Nine. Curie is the woman who has
erected the turning post at which
science in its progress must stop and
whether it Is on the right road
after all. Her intuition about the
character of pitchblende, has grown
into a great question mark which now
materialiZes in tantaliZing fashion be-
fore the men who have been working
out theories-books of them-on basic
principles of which none of them is
certain since radium remains mex
plicable.
They debate her eligibility to the
academy. She Is woman, of course,
and she never made any demands upon
the academy-yet they cannot afford to
except her; she has meant too much to
France and to science at large. And
yet she is a woman. And so the learn
ed assemblage puzzles itself.-Chicago
Tribune.