# The Radio-Active Elements

By Madame Sklodowska-Curie

[When the new wonders of radium were announced to the world a few months ago not the least part of the surprise was due to the rumor that a woman was associated with the remarkable discovery. In some quarters, however, a doubt was thrown on the effective collaboration of Mme. Curie with her husband and others. But a perusal of the following pages will show that Professor Curie is rather the helpmate of his wife in this magnificent piece of scientific work. Professor Pierre Curie fills the chair of physics in one of the scientific schools of the great Paris University, and Mme. Curie, who is of Polish origin, has been recognized for several years in French scientific circles as a force, especially in laboratory work. She was born at Warsaw in 1867 and was educated in the college of that city. Coming to Paris in 1891, she took up scientific studies at the university, where she received the master's degree in physics and mathematics. She married Professor Pierre Curie in 1895, and in the next year passed the examination which permitted her to become candidate for a professorship in girls' colleges. In 1900 she was appointed Professor of Physics in the State Woman's Normal School at Sèvres, near Paris. She has published two or three works on physical subjects, and is about to defend a thesis before the Paris University, when she will take her doctor's degree, the highest degree given in France. This is the first magazine article, we believe, that has appeared on the rad'o-active elements from either Madame Curie or her husband.—EDITOR.]

MY investigations of radio-active substances have been carried on for some four years. I began my researches with a study of the radia-tions of uranium, which had been dis-covered by M. Becquerel. Such an in-teresting vista of possible original dis-covery was unfolded that my husband, M. Curie, gave up what work he had in hand in order to take part in my labors. We put forth our united efforts to the task of isolating some new radio-active substances and pursuing the study of them.

From the beginning of our investiga-
tions we have made it a rule to lend
samples of the substances discovered
and prepared by us to other investiga-
tors in physics, and especially to M.
Becquerel, the pioneer in this field of
metallic radiation. We have facilitated
as far as possible the investigations
made by others on new radio-active
substances. As the result of our first
publications, M. Giesel, in Germany, set
about preparing radiating material, and
lent samples to a number of German
scientists. Since then these substances
have been placed on sale in France and
in Germany, and a distinct scientific
movement in their regard has been in-
itiated. As with every new subject,
there has been necessarily some confu-
sion in all these investigations. The
state of the question modifies itself so
to say, almost from day to day.

One point, however, is definitely es-
tablished from the chemical point of
view. This is the existence of a new
chemical element, strongly radio-active
—the metal radium. The preparation
of pure chloride of radium and the de-
termination of the atomic weight of
radium itself constitute the most im-
portant part of my personal work. At
the same time that my labors have
added a new element with certain
very curious properties to those al-
ready known, a new method of chem-
ical investigation has also been estab-
lished and confirmed by experiment.
This new method is based upon radio-
activity, considered as an atomic prop-
erty of matter. It is exactly this prop-
erty which has served M. Curie and
myself so well in the discovery of
radium.

While from the chemical standpoint
the question which we set ourselves at
the beginning may be considered as
solved, the study of the physical prop-
erties of radio-active substances is in
course of evolution. Certain important
points have been established, but a
number of conclusions are as yet only
provisional. There is nothing aston-
ishing in this if the complexity of phe-
nomena to which radio-activity gives
rise and the differences which exist
among the various radio-active sub-
stances be considered. In order to
make clear the present status of our

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THE BROTHER

1497

the estimate. Bringing with them and
leaving behind ideas that were harmful,
they have taken away good American
gold in millions to be spent in another
land. It is a part of the history of trades
unionism which is rarely told. Interfer-
ence with the laws of trade, or of nature,
is as sure to bring retribution as is viola-
tion of the laws of morality. In the case
presented the sufferers have been those
for whose benefit the natural order of
wage remuneration was disturbed.

The tendency toward the creation of a
body of alien workmen in the midst of
our people, and, ultimately, of a class of
alien employers, was strikingly exhibited
in disturbances in the building trades in
Boston. The emergency called for men
who were citizens. Scores of master
workmen, many of them having a num-
ber of years of residence, were obliged
to take out naturalization papers. The
Chinaman or Italian who, having ac-
quired a few hundreds of dollars, returns
to spend his declining days in his native
land is not a more instructive example.

Trades unions are helping, in more di-
rect ways, in the work of turning over
our industries to foreigners. Declaring
that American workmen should receive
American wages, they deny to American
youth, as far as lies in their power, the
right and opportunity to learn trades.
The limitations on the number of ap-
prentices allowed is a familiar example.
It is not so generally known that they in-
sist upon periods of apprenticeship that
are arbitrarily fixed, with no reference to
the capacity of the learner. The youth
who, by natural skill or intense applica-
tion, can learn the trade within two years
is obliged to spend a full term as a pupil
along with the most stupid or most in-

dolent of his fellows. Employers, too,
are at one with their most unreasonable
workmen in enforcing the rule.

Trade schools are doing noble work in
preserving free conditions; but there
should be no illusions. Great tho the
beneficence of Col. Richard Auchmuty,
Isaiah V. Williamson and others has
been, the work of training boys in crafts
is a most costly one. The result in grad-
uates has been small in comparison with
the demand for high grade men of native
birth and culture.

The present outlook in relation to
trades unions is serious. No assault is
intended upon the principle of unionism;
but no one knows where power unre-
strained will lead. Business men in union
are far more powerful than laboring
men, and can defeat their most formi-
dable uprisings. The consciousness of
power which the demonstration affords
will cause, in some minds, a desire for
reprisals for injuries inflicted by brutal
and unjust strikes in the past. Should
they come it will be no justification to
say that the workmen, by their arbitrary
acts, have brought retribution upon
themselves. The thing to be considered
will then be whether the very independ-
ence of American labor is not itself in
danger. The backward swing of the
pendulum, from the present excesses of
the unions, may be far; those who wish
well for their country and its people must
hope sincerely that it will not result in a
permanent lowering of the tone of labor
in the United States.

The unions, by meeting the situation
in a spirit of fairness, by the abolition of
violence, of boycotts, and the sympathetic
strike, can avert their danger.

PHILADELPHIA.

The Brother

By Aloysius Coll

ACCOUNTED for the long campaign of life,
I listened to the Captain of my Heart:
"Thy temple choose—the hive of Industry,
The house of Science, or the fane of Art!"

I chose the last. I knocked upon the gate
For years before it opened unto me—
And when the rusty hinges turned at last,
Another also entered—Poverty!

CONNELLSVILLE. PA.