CORRESPONDENCE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 299, 22 June 1909, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

lUpiIJM No. 3. *(To the Editor.) Sir.— What I expect tho public wan.t to know about radium is (1) what me its peculiar properties? (2) what' is it likely to be useful for? (3) where is it to be obtained? (4) what are tiro tests^to recognise it?" No. 1 : Its properties are everlast r iim energy pi a kiwi very like electricity : iii fact, it may yet be proved to be- a new species of electricity. It can take photographs without light. It car. discharge electricity. -„ For instance, if a little radium was placed between- the poles of a charged storage battery, you. might as well "'connect the "poles with ..a copper wire. Tho «iectricity"\v>uld all cross' owing to a. sort of (gas?) emanation, it is railed, which surrounds radium. This tras is. -supposed .to be the new; metal helium, called from helium, the Greek for the sun, which supplies everlasting heat and light. Everything placed near radium acquires its properties ; (how like magnetism). Sulphide of zinc especially glows, and Dr CWkes' spinthariscope, shown by Mr Wragge, is what radium so far seem.? destined to be, viz., a toy. It is ma/ie by placing a speck "of radium too small to bo seen on a thread before a' surface covered with zinc sulphide. The radium v at the proper distance bombards the zinc with small sparks, which "cease not " day or night." for 2000 years. But why 2000. for someone would have to be watching it from B.C. to now, and radium has only been discovered a few years. No. 2 : Only as a toy at present, antl we. can form no idea of.. what

its mission is so far. A German professor, coming to London to lecture on it, carried a piece about the size of a turnip seed in his waistcoat pocket in ;i glass tube for a few clays, nnrl he j_V!t a (loop troublesome ulcer .•! til'.- ",'.i I'.van-. -t to v. here tl:i> radium was-, lladium i» surround eel by the gas it is ceaselessly making I helium. It is ceaselessly throwing off throe species of rays — alpha, beta, and gamma — each having different properties. No. 3-: I should think Mr Wragge, or the Government analyst, 'Welling-' ton, if applied to, would give information. There is not a teaspoonf ul of it in the possession/ of man, so far. I heard Mr Wragge's samples were getting very common, and could he obtained for £1 or £2 in London.— l am, etc., ' . H. M. LEVINGE.