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King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 430, 13 January 1912, Page 2

Since it has been asserted that the emanation from radium turns slowly into the rare gas helium, investigations have been on foot to get geological confirmation of this fact. A number of common minerals have been tested both for radio-activity and for the presence of helium, and it has been found that the more radio-active the substance the more helium it contains. This is an we would expect. Again the oidv?r strata of the earth's crust are much richer in helium than the more, recent layers, doubtless because the gas forms with extreme slowness, and millions of years are required to develop any amount of it. It bus hcen found that minerals from a stratum estimated as about 140,000,000 years old contain about eight times as much helium as those from strata only 4,000,000 years old. The significance of all this appears when we remember that helium and radium both rank as chemical elements ; it would appear to be a case of evolution in t.he inorganic world.