DISCOVERY OF RADIO.

Evening Star, Issue 12883, 4 August 1906, Page 9

DISCOVERY OF RADIO.

Professor Battelli, of Rome, was recently interviewed with respect to his discovery pf radio.

"Some confusion exists," be said- "AU the radio substances, of which up to now radium is the most important, emit a gas to which has been given the name of Emanation, and which presents, although less strongly, the characteristics of tie body from which it comes. In the" gas which we have extracted from the, ban Giuliano water we have found a., very copious and very active emanation, such as has, perhaps, been found in no other water up to now studied. " Naturally the presence of this emanation supposes the p;esenoe of a radio substance which has generated it, but bo far we have only isolated the emanation. (Some time ago we initiated studies of many [ mineral waters in Tuscany, and. attracted by the extraordinary activity of SanrGiuliano water, we have set up there a complete plant for extracting and isolating the emanation. Our way differs from all I others, and is almost exclusively founded od physical, not chemical, methods. The j machinery is composed of a steam motor, two compressors, a gasometer, etc. The! radio emanation is extracted from the : water and condensed in small tubes which are strongly luminous. Now we are studying the various properties of tne emanation, but for the moment we are .obliged to 6us- | peiid our experiments until the arrival of I new machinery. For the piesent the substance from which the emanation is derived cannot be precisely named. Its char- : acteristics appear to make this extraortlinarily active emanation different from that of olher radio substancis, but it resembles that coming from radium more than that from any other substance. Expereince only can tell what the substance really is." "Do yon think that your discovery will have an industrial application!" "Radio substances," replied the professor to the interviewer of the 'Giornale d'ltalia,' " have never been applied industrially m the real sense of the word. The expense of production will always be too great to be remunerative industrially."; " I>(> you suppose that the discovery will have an importance for therapeutics!" :, " That is absolutely out of my province. But you must know that many medical notabtlities have concluded, after study, that a great part of the value of uvdicinal waters depends upon the radio substances melted in them."