IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12229, 26 March 1903, Page 5

IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.

(Received March 26, 1.13 a.m.)

London. March 25. The Times says that M. Carrie, a French scientist, discovered that radium continuously emits heat without combustion or chemical change or change of molecular structure and maintains a temperature of 27.10 Fahrenheit above its surroundings.

In chemistry a good deal of quiet unobtrusive work has been done lately in the study of the radio-active bodies, without any definite end in view except that of wresting Nature's secrets. The subject of radio-activity is one which has become of intense interest to chemists since the application of the Rimtgen rays to photography. , Since that time the Becquerel ravs from uranium have been discoverer!, and later the fact has been ascertained that several substances possess the. property of radio-activity in a most remarkable degree, chief among which i« radium, others! going by the names polonium, actinium, and chalcolite. These bodies are characterised by the property of emitting radiant energy, though the manner by which such energy is replaced is not apparent. The principal elements with which these bodies have been found, in association are uranium, barium, thorium. It is too early yet to say what lire possible trend of these discoveries may he; but chemically, physically, and electrically, they possess considerable fascination, and the keynote may be found at last in some now or modified photography. Kenvi Becquerel has proved that the radiations from radium are composed of a portion identical with cathode rays, being (leviable by a magnetic field, and a. non-deviablo portion one part of which is exceedingly penetrating. Radium renders air a conductor of eleetrici.-v. and acts photographically on sensitive plates. It is immensely more active than uranium, and thorium, which act in a similar manner.